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.
Not if you have half a brain to grasp what you are watching. It promotes critical thinking and didn’t take anything away from the people who realized what was being shown. It left Enough to hurt more than the original even being that the voice actor and writing did an amazing job bringing the characters to life and feel for them especially in the last 2 chapters. Haters gonna hate have your opinion but just because you couldn’t get it doesn’t mean that it just blanket takes away all emotional impact from the moment. They made some mistakes bothing is perfect but anybody being objective about it will say this was one of the best games of all time.
@@ProudFather1003 in sorry but your faking emotion impact. There isn’t anything added that is better than the original and the only stuff that id good is the stuff that was properly remade from the original. When your saying you like this better your actually saying you like Roche and Glenn.
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.
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.
Thank you so much for this. It's weird to be on the receiving end of this bandwagon approach to FF criticism admittedly, but like, as an old school FF13 defender this is nothing new to me lol
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.
The point wasn't that Barret not wanting to cut a deal with Rufus doesn't make any sense, the point is "why did Cloud and Tifa agree to the terms when they both personally know Barret's daughter is in Midgar?" It's not that Barret should've accepted it--far from it. The entire party should've refused it without question. They all hate Shinra, and accepting a deal that cuts Barret completely out of contact with his adoptive daughter is ridiculously out-of-character.
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!
Thank you so much for this comment. I have, in a limited capacity, a similar experience, if it helps to commiserate a little. I remember getting to Aerith's death in the OG well after it was spoiled for me and finding it deeply moving and tragic, but not something that was nearly as intense as some of my friends talked about. But, by the time I got around to re-recording the first disc to get footage for this video, I've had a very, very different relationship with death. I just recently lost 4 grandparents within the span of 2 years, and late last year I lost a dear friend to a medical complication during surgery, a completely unplanned, unexpected shot from the dark. And this time around getting to the Sealed Forest brought me to tears because of exactly what you were talking about here. That kind of sudden, brutal loss that leaves you living with these phantoms of who this person was, in my case pages and pages of discord logs and messenger app histories... I dunno, it's excruciating, it's unfair, and it's something that all the novelty and intrigue baked into the redo of her death did not manage to secure. Even if she is dead and these are just his hallucinations, that's Hollywood stuff, it's overdone, fantastical pain on a grand stage, it doesn't compare to revisiting the church in the original and maybe seeing silent visions of her at the garden that you can't interact with. Just little ghosts of who this person was. Brutal. Anyways, now I'm rambling, thank you so much for this comment, again.
I just ranted as well (though in a much shorter fashion) as another boomer who loved the OG and this sincere and developped feedback means a lot to embiterred nerds like me. Thank you so much.
The more I hear about the original the more I feel like I missed out since I've never played it. But I agree with all of the critiques because it feels like a chore to get through the story and there isn't much emotionally going for me. Except frustration from all the mini-games
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.
Ya know, I was coming down here to make a big long comment, but I think you touched on pretty much everything. Maybe I'm just a sucker, idk, but Rebirth feels to me like a massive labor of love, and as a contrast to the video, it feels like much of the game was made with fans like myself in mind. Thinking of it as "sinister" honestly just bothers me, if it was cynical it wouldn't be so indulgent lol. And as you stated, a lot of the mentioned character issues don't bother me. Cid was disappointing because I wanted to see how they handled rocket town, but it's been said in interviews that they're looking at that plotline for the third one. Or like during the parade, I figured Barret was stopping Yuffie because Barret is passionate and cares about his friends, and making that assassination attempt with his friends right up there was a bad idea. I guess you could argue he's usually impulsive, but I can buy that at the end of the day the people he cares for matter the most. It was an interesting watch, though, even if I feel so completely different
Because of your dissertation I'm now pretty sure I won't agree with a portion of the video, because you just summarized everything I feel about the game XD Thanks for putting it into words.
I have never read a comment that more strongly and completely echoed my own feeling and sentiments on anything before this moment. I wanted to let you know that I appreciate the positive vibe I got from your comment and you shouldn't let the opinions of others diminish your enjoyment in retrospect. At the end of the day, you still had a good time. take those critiques and use them to understand the perspectives of those who find issue with the game. if you find them to be valid issues that you felt as well, that's fine too, but its absolutely ok to separate your criticism of the game from your enjoyment and positive memory of the experience. i personally find it to be a better process to come in with limited expectations, let the art show me what it wants to, enjoy it for what it is and then critique it after having experienced it for what it is rather then what I wanted it to be. This might sound really stupid, but I find that I have a much better time, even with things I may not like as much, when approaching them this way. It has allowed me to have a good time with things I probably would have hated if i had come in looking for things to dislike. Sometimes passion can blind you, for better or for worse. I'm a very critical and analytical person by nature, so its easy for me to "ruin" things for myself and other people. I try to remind myself of this when going into something so that I can reign in those impulses a bit, cuz when all's said and done, I'd rather have a good time then a bad one, and in many of these cases I've discovered that I'm the one who ultimately makes that choice. (obviously does not apply to all things but I thought I'd throw this in just in case) At the end of it all I really enjoyed this video. I appreciate the level and type of discussion it moves towards but I also think it goes too hard on the angle of cynicism or corporate perversion of the original IP or concepts. I came away with some solid new concepts to consider and if that's not the point then I don't know what is.
Damn, that line "it always does give me pause and make me wonder if maybe I experience things too generously." Really hits hard. I'm with you guys, there's critiques i have of the game like Life Springs could be removed entirely and the game would be fine XD and like the video, I didn't love how they handled Cosmo Canyon or Bugenhagen in the MSQ. I know Bugenhagen gets a better resolution in a side quest, but he was a little mean at the beginning. Beyond that though, I largely enjoyed the story and the game play and whenever I had a question like "wait wha?" it more often than not got answered. Very excited for part 3 and the theories to come! Godspeed friends.
I think what you say is pretty fair. The only real thing I criticize, and I've done this with the original game, is Aerith's feelings for Cloud. I truly do not understand how it can be this strong even with everything they have been through prior to her death when much of it is based on a past boyfriend. The only reason this even is something I'm critical of is because the ending of Rebirth really is about her and how she feels about Cloud and everyone. It's like, Cloud's resemblance to Zack got him through the door, but it's not the reason he got to stay in the house if that makes but I don't really find it convincing to be anything more than friendship. That is kind of the same for Tifa as well, but hers is much more convincing to me. More importantly though, I think you're approach to judging it for what it is in good faith is exactly what we need. It's not like the people who like Rebirth like everything about it. I love this game and I still have only cautiously optimistic feelings toward this story, gameplay is for the most part great. I love that I'm given another mystery because the old one really isn't a mystery anymore. The fact that we are speculating on what happens next is proof this game has become a relevant topic again.
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.
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.
@@mikev8746 The original isn't even about death, death is merely the vehicle for its themes. But its theme isn't fighting fate either, that's also just a vehicle. So far Remake/Rebirth has made fighting fate a much more central theme. It remains to be seen if that's the overall theme or not.
@@mikev8746 The main theme is life, and to portray life you need death and death means you have grief. Remake and Rebirth does everything it can to lessen the crash aspects of death, loss and grief and barely even touches life except realiving people right before our eyes, regardless if it is a whisper deliminator or alternative memory/whatever world.
@@vincentgraymore That's bullshit, who told you that? The theme of these games/game is literally self discovery, acceptance, finding a purpose etc. It's the whole arc every character and especially Cloud goes through. People saying it's about life and death are just trying to sound edgy or just parrot the most distilled fan opinion on FF7. And regarding life that's a very vague theme I'd say.
@@coolguychecker7329 I'd say that as a remake of something. You kind of end up with either fate as a theme. Especially if you end up changing things around and approaching it from the whole Friedrich Nietzsche angle with the lifestream being some vehicle of expressing endless reoccurance. Which at the very least is a very interest idea for a remake trilogy. But as you said it has to still show the fruits of its labor or the failure thereof. So far though I think Retrilogy is just applyfing the themes of the original. Which isn't about death. But rather about self discovery, acceptance, finding a purpose again etc. Death is just a vehicle to drive these story concepts home as you said. And it doesn't have to be death. Some characters face death but allot of versions of loss are covered. This then is used to create a satisfying arc on these characters. Retrilogy takes this concept from what I feel is the case. And introduces things like fate. And makes us question if we had the chance to do things over. Would we do it differently? And the answer is we would like to ideally. But in the end we always make the same choices. Cause thats who we've always been and always will be. The FF7 characters included, Remake or OG. And so the theme is less about fate itself and more about accepting and finding peace with our choices. Ofcourse it's still the OG being remade too so while the meta narrative of the remake is all this. The central theme of the original lies within it unchanged. Atleast that's what it's going towards. Part 3 would be the deciding factor. But I like the set up so far.
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.
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
@@uriel_n_diaz the new elements don’t add anything to the story’s themes and are mostly intrigue and subversion for their own sake rather than compliment anything. They pick and choose when to sprinkle in the new elements but otherwise try to tell the main story but worse most of the time. The new story material is literally just about the original plot and doesn’t seem to have any complimentary theme to justify not just making a proper remake and adding compilation elements
@@stephen8342 commenting on the original story/meta commentary (especially in such contrived, “I’m 15 and this is deep” ways) is not the same as adding to its themes
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...
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)."
Bruh - we already KNOW where it all is going, even if you never play it. You cant not know the major story beats because people discuss this game ad nauseum online. So no matter how much they mangle the fuck out of this shit in telling it your still getting the major beats. Sephiroth bad cloud mental af tifa is bestie barret is eco terrorist with a troubled past aerith is good and dies sephy summons meteor cloud and co whoop his ass to make the way clear for holy . Doesnt matter how they try to knot this shit up that is the roadmap
They are making it up as they go along. For example the Lifestream has nothing to do with different timelines or universes. That was a massive retcon in a non canon book written 20 years later that nobody cares about.
@@jaedaniels3025 If the journey to those story beats is stupid and baffling then that in turn makes the story beats not land as well. Moreover, they fucked up the story beats as well. You are acting like plot points are the only things that matter to fans of Final Fantasy VII. Newsflash - it's the actually story and specific moments and characters as well as the journey with those characters that fans care about.
@@jaedaniels3025 We love the original because we exactly know WHERE it is going. Nobody, literally nobody of the OG fans, asked for any surprises, except for current gen graphics that blow us away and a crazy combat system, which we got. But nobody asked to butcher the OG story and pivotal scenes into a completely ridicoulus and absolutely low iq script.
@@dshearwf 100% correct. I along with many other FF7 were crying tears of joy in 2015 when the Remake project was announced. Not a single person at the time asked for it to be split up into 3 parts and shoe horn in a multiverse.
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.
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
I am totally agree with you. For example i like the og game and did not like all games in the franchise afterwards. My friend like Crisis core game, because he had the psp and it was one of the best game for this console.
Yes the compilation is your standard anime, something like naruto, this shounen like action fest. While the original is also anime but more like something like Evangelion, kinda mysterious and bizarre
You're not off base. The AC-esque FF7 you're talking about is essentially the so called Compilation of FF7 (google it up if not familiar with). It was never a planed part of the original plan, primarily built due to Square wanting to milk the exceptional success of the original FF7. Before FFVII, no single final fantasy title got sequels, prequels, manga, a movie (even the OG FF movie was its own original story, kinda like the games were), etc. As you said, it is not to say there is nothing good on it, but I am not even commenting on its quality or what I like or dont about it. The point is that the divide you feel is real, they were not created equal, and it is only the latter that fits Squares marketing/business strategy moving forward after og FF7, and so that is the image that gets pushed.
I've felt this way since 2003. You can really tell a difference between official merchandise sold pre-sqenix merger and post, even just in the way things are styled and marketed. Also, up until that point, no FF game had ever been connected. What did the series do right around and following the merger? They made FFX-2 and Advent Children to capitalize on the success and milk their IPs. At the time I felt like I saw which way things were going and swore off supporting Sqenix any further after Dirge of Cerberus released (that was my breaking point after X-2, XII, AC, and all the stuff I really didn't like that diverged severely from the Square I knew.) and honestly, I haven't regretted it at all. Final Fantasy is not what it was. I was so happy when I discovered Mistwalker (a studio of primarily ex-Square employees headed by none other than Hironobu Sakaguchi himself) and while they haven't put out very many games in the past 20 years, what they have done, feels far more in keeping with the soul of Final Fantasy than anything Sqenix has done. I had a tiny bit of hope in the back of my mind for FF7 remake, (the story was right there laid out for them. all they had to do was make the graphics look nice and stick to the script!) but all the experiences I've had with Sqenix over the past 2 decades led me to believe that they were incapable of creating anything more than a messy, flashy product, which ultimately is devoid of any real soul. It's a bit vindicating to hear people talk about the decline I've seen in this series for the past 2 decades, but it still sucks, and it still makes me sad and wish for what we could've had.
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.
@@Keasy91 1. Being held at a gunpoint hasn't stopped the party before from defying Shinra. 2. Yuffie assassinating Rufus would have caused a a big enough distraction for the party to go on the offensive or run. 3. They still had to fight their way out anyway since Rufus blamed the assassination attempt on them. 4. The party knows Shinra can't be trusted. So even entertaining Rufus' offer is a bad idea. Which is why Barret stopping Yuffie from killing Rufus, but then later saying she did them a favor is ridiculous. 5. The whole plan of trying to talk to Rufus or 'rough him up a bit' as Barret put it is dumb to begin with. Aerith mentioning how she just wanted an answer for why the Turks said the party isn't the target, but then Roche challenges Cloud. They weren't trying to negotiate since Shinra can't be trusted, they don't have the power to intimidate someone like Rufus into following their demands. Trying to get close to Rufus was a bad idea from the start unless the goal was to eliminate him. Yuffie had the right idea.
@@Keasy91how were they held at gunpoint? Shinra aren’t going to kill them live on TV or after they cut the feed, live infront of hundreds of on lookers 😂
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.
You put it perfectly. All this change and nonsense, but to what end? Some confusing half-effort to be original while somehow also being unoriginal. What a mess. This game will win GOTY without earning it. As if GOTY means anything anymore.....
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.
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."
How can you say Rebirth had any "continuity porn" though? They don't even reference the compilation that often to begin with. Sounded like they just don't like the compilation at all so when it does show up it ruins her day instead of being a fun nod.
@@hydrocosmo My point is in regards to the multiverse stuff - Nojima has said that he wants tie the entire FFVII subseries together with this 7R project, but the OG, Compilation and 7R trilogy contradict each other too much. Thus, it seems that he decided a multiverse was the only way he could do that. Unfortunately, the addition of a multiverse ends up cheapening the narrative emotionally. That's what I meant by continuity porn: Nojima is trying too hard to canonize the entire FF7 subseries, at the expense of the Remake trilogy's story.
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.
imo, rebirth is going the same way as remake. the initial release is gonna be where it gets the most handholding and padded praise, and about a year out, everyone is going to look back and go "wait a minute, this game dropped the ball". Not sure why it goes like that, but that's what i see happening.
@@vla1ne It's because of content creators. People forget it's their literal job to praise anything, that's how they earn their money. A maximilian dood has no idea of final fantasy, but as a contractor for sponsorships his opinion is set from the start. Then you have the bot infested social media and bought out "journalism" reinforcing and drowning out everything else and after the market cycle ends and the ACTUAL critics appear through the algorithm, you get a clearer perspective, if you haven't managed to form a decision and opinion for yourself all this time. Me and my friends who grew up with the OG were all heartbroken in a very negative sense after Remake. It doesn't matter what any content creator clown says, it was our memories of a great piece of art shattered in this moment and with such a ending it was crystal clear the next two titles will not be able to salvage anything from that and indeed, they made it even worse.
@@dshearwf didn't buy remake because I have a "no day 1 buy" policy (with the sole exception of earth defense force). Remake convinced me not to buy any of the new ff7 games, at the absolute least, until the trilogy is complete. Watching how the story's progressed, it's hard for me to see why it's getting so much praise. Sure, the battle system looks good, but how the hell is that story so well regarded when it's basically a watered down og, with less reason to invest in the characters?
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.
"Nobody acts like that" bro you do not realize how little some people care for others. I saw a homeless dude trying desperately to keep his sick dog warm in New York in January and NOBODY else stopped to try and help him. Everyone just walked by. That scene was not a false reality. It's the reality some people face every day.
@@StormSnake0618 yeah, people just ignore others. That has nothing to do with what I said. People don't see little girls in the street who are asking for help and just laugh in their face and tell them to piss off. That never happens. Your example had nothing to do with this fact.
@@ericmcmanus5179 You vastly underestimate how disgusting some people are dude. Some people do not care, and if you bother them in any way, they will give you shit for it. I wish you were right, but you're not, at least not in a blanket statement "that never happens" way.
@@StormSnake0618 people are very rude. I just have never even seen videos of adults laughing in a child's face when the child asks for help because her mother is dying. I have never ever seen any videos or heard any stories of adults laughing in the face of a child who is asking them for help. I can't find that anywhere.
@@ericmcmanus5179people often bitch on twitter about how much they hate children in a very not normal way, way beyond just a “kids are annoying,” way, and yet you find it unfathomable that people on the street would act that way to a struggling child. Yeah, your comment seems to suggest a lack of real world life experience. Can’t take it seriously.
I have loved FF7 since I first played it in 1997 and original compilation defender but... what they've done with Remake/Rebirth/Battle Royale/Ever Crisis is an outright travesty. The multiverse stuff just ruined it. "no one is ever really gone". Rebirth is half mini games half outdated open world design like from 15 years ago mixed with Kingdom Hearts story skullduggery.
My issue was the cait sith not holding Marlene hostage, dyne not unaliving himself and wanting to have Marlene join her mother in the after life, red 13's moment with his father was also ruined by not giving it enough space and time to breathe. A lot of the heaviest moments in the original final fantasy 7 and dark moments were watered down either because some big boss fight. They want you to get into right after the heavy moment or just simply taking out the darker parts... That said, I love the game. But none of it's heavy moments hit the same at all.
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.
Yeah, I definitely agree. This is also my issue with Sephiroth and why I don’t like the Remake portrayal of him all that much. They shoehorn Sephiroth into scenes way too much. It makes him come off as just an annoying and obnoxious character who likes to babble and meow about a bunch of cryptic nonsense. It’s just kinda comical and silly. Like, I’m sorry that I can’t take it seriously. Though I kinda wish that he would just go away or shut the hell up already. I just ponder if this is the consequence of him being such a popular and marketable character to the point where they believe that people won’t be very interested in FF7 material if they don’t give him enough screen time, plaster his face on enough material, and have One-Winged Angel playing for the billionth time. He’s like some unofficial mascot of FF7 or something. Even then, I still don’t see popularity as an excuse to just suddenly make his presence become obnoxious and in-your-face all the time to the point to where you start to hate him for that reason. It’s just Five Nights at Sephiroth’s now. Beating a guy many times until you stop feeling threatened by them will result in that guy becoming a joke to you. They would feel like a character from a slapstick cartoon who gets beat up all the time like Tom Cat from Tom & Jerry for example. That’s what Sephiroth in the remakes feels like to me. Someone that has to be taken seriously, he and the writers want you to take him seriously, but you can’t take him all *that* seriously because of how many times you’re kicking his ass because they want to shoehorn his presence and popularity/marketability so much that they can’t allow anyone or anything else to be the final boss of the first two entries of the remakes and just save him to be the final boss in the third and final entry in the remake trilogy. Remake Sephiroth just feels like a mix between a dark and serious character that you need to be scared of and take seriously every time he shows up on screen and a comedic slapstick cartoon character who keeps on getting his ass whupped like Tom Cat or Wile E. Coyote. He’s a joke that needs to be taken seriously or rather, a joke that demands to be taken seriously. It reminds me of the Mario & Luigi vs. Sephiroth memes where Sephiroth is curbstomped by Mario & Luigi (thanks to their cartoon physics) and is viewed as the punchline, the butt of the joke, or the butt-monkey. And I think that’s just sad for a character like him, honestly.
Except it wasn't. People just ignored every interview the devs ever gave going back as far as 2015, and even what was said in the initial trailer itself. People fooled themselves into what they wanted...not what the devs were saying all along.
@@Dayv018 Absolutely not true. This is a legit lie on your part. Every single trailer had purposefully chosen scenes that never revealed the true nature of the game and only baited people's nostalgia. And even if in dev interviews, there were indications (which there weren't), it's not a job of the customer to watch dev interviews. It's Square's job be have honest marketing.
@ravador Agreed. Personally, I try to avoid spoilers as much as possible. What little I did hear was that they were changing the combat system, breaking the game into multiple volumes, and that they were going to stay true to the story. Almost all of the promotional material and packaging was deceptive, and most of what was shown focused on scenes that were recreated from the original game. You know, nastolgia bait. If they had said, "Follow Cloud and friends as they embark on a new, fantastical adventure where they rekindle their friendships and fight the physical manifestation of Fate itself!" Most OG fans would've been like, "Nah, I'm good."
@@thromegaawesome I mean, shit, why do you think it was named "Remake". Nomura would like yout o believe it's a clever pun, but it's obviously a disengenious marketing strategy.
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.
"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." I know exactly how you feel. I'm sorry you've had to go through this same as I. What you're describing is exactly how I felt after beating Remake (part 1) - the time-travel/multiverse stuff killed the emotional weight of the story for me, and the "will/won't the developers change [X]?" meta-nature of the trilogy makes it impossible for me to suspend disbelief/remain immersed. After beating Remake, I swore that I would wait until Rebirth came out and I could read up on all the spoilers BEFORE I decided whether it was worth playing or not. Ultimately, the direction they've taken this trilogy is so antithetical to what I love about FFVII that I decided not to get Rebirth and Part 3. I discussed this issue (from a storytelling perspective) at length in a video I uploaded to my channel back in February (a month before Rebirth released). Some parts of it are a little bit dated, but I've seen an influx of viewers lately and many commenters have said that it helped them to understand and cope with the issues they have with Remake AND Rebirth. Granted, it's a VERY long video, but feel free to check it out if you have the time. Also, if it's any consolation, I've recently been playing the OG with mods installed (e.g., Ninostyle character models, enhanced backgrounds, ReMusic, New Threat 2.0, new sound FX, etc.). It's really damn good, and the modders are still finding new ways to make it better. It has helped me with overcoming my grief.
“I was feeling so disconnected from the general fanbase” Oh jeez, I relate to that sentiment. I’m disconnected from the general fanbase but I tend to feel like that towards most fanbases even if they revolve around my favorite franchises. I’m not very social and don’t fit in well, so I’m not confident that I’ll have many good interactions nor be good in discussions.
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.
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.
@@kei7540 Do you remember returning to Nibelheim in the original. It was overcast and gloomy. The towns People were very hesitant to even talk to you. They would gaslight you into thinking the town never even burned down. Now when you return it’s almost like they’re welcoming you to their town. The atmosphere was way off with the sun shining and being able to play Queens blood with shinra soldiers!?
@@endlessmitch9663 so? They change to be a rehab center and I mean we get other scenes like cloud getting hauntings of past and saying the same lines a sephiroth in the flashback and the roche fight reminding him that he could lose himself even further to the degradation
Agreed.even the chapter where tifa and aerith almost got trafficked off, people are just having a blast. Like they're on vacation there. And it's just one big gag.
Man thats what you told yourself to feel edgy. Same reason you probably tell yourself the OG wasnt anime. The PSX games abstract presentation really helps with this. It allows people to just project their tastes onto it. I cant believe a supposed OG fan would dare call Costa del Sol, GS and Gongaga gritty though 😂
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.
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.
This is the best explanation for all the confusion going on, and I hope to all goodness that it's what the developers are actually going for. Because it could very well go either way
I really appreciated your thoughts and a lot of your observations hit that "you may have not noticed it, but your brain did" level. Your review is unique here because you really only covered your feedback on the plot. I wonder how your experience of the gameplay impacted how you feel about this story? Based on your hour count, sounds like you did spend time on the in between content. Basically, I did map completions and side quests before leaving each region, trying to do as much as possible before starting story quests. So there was time in-between these story beats for me to reflect on one hand, and to ignore on the other. Particularly because that time was mired in ADHD levels if choredom and boredom. Coupled with these painful new character beats and plots, and I was left with boredom and spikes of frustration from every new plot point. When I read posts of those criticisms of the myriad of painful and obtuse minigames or painful expedition, the fan response always boils down to "sorry for too much game" or "why don't you skip that stuff til after the story". That response kills me. Under the hood, I thought I was playing an RPG. I want to role play, experience these areas and their people and parts of the story. I should have known though that wasn't the method it was trying to story tell... Immediately, you can't carry your Remake save over. I was shocked, all that investment, I played Remake with long haul intent and now every weapon, summon, materia was somehow gone. I thought like Golden Sun, I was playing a story across games. Instead, I was watching one. My second story concern was when walking around Kalm, NPCs would shout statements to themselves, to one another as I walked past. The screen filling with dialog thanks to closed captions. I don't think I learned a single thing about the world from its inhabitants. Every area was not a town to explore, but a set piece to task through. Mai the ai screaming unhearable facts through my remote about a beastary I wanted to love, but barely even got to know. When shes done, she'll keep making noise, singing and talking about the fight. My point is, this is a game that you can watch the main story through youtube and be just as invested as you are with a controller in your hands. The world doesn't do anything to move the story along. For all the flak Remake got for being "too linear", the games arcade rolodex tricked us into thinking that problem was solved. Its not. The parts of the game that move the plot are on rails. The developers forgot that there are so many tools to tell a story. Throwing a box at a chicken to lure them home wasn't one of them. That is how fans can say to you "skip past those minigames, dont burn yourself out, but go back in your beat game and complete stuff later". Because like so much media now, its not an experience anymore. It's just content. That lack of an emersive world trickles right through your points. We have 80 hours of content here, but we can't give the og content the time it needs to be new. Cloud has to wig out every scene since Remake. Hey, we already know Nippleheim is a facade, so move along quickly up that hill. Dyne just became a junk yard robot, keep that momentum going by having him do what Zack doesn't do this time. Pew pew. Sure, the OG is ported to every device out there. These remakes though are an opportunity to introduce new people to beloved stories though, and to rob people of all those incredible feelings you touched on makes me question if stories like the og could even be told now. Not when it could be split into 3 parts for that sweet paycheck instead of one remake for an experience. Ultimately, thats what this game lost. Over 100 hours of content. I experienced very little substance. I don't feel a single damn thing. I leave this long post with one last thought. Thinking of FFXVs incompleteness, I imagine the investment was so high for this game that despite being top 5 in 2024 sells, there is a real risk to there not being a 3rd and final game. Like Hollywood blockbusters, you better make 3x your spend or you are finished. I wonder if the ambiguous, could go anywhere because it went no where ending recognizes this risk? So it can be resolved by any number of silly sequels, books, animes, etc that take it conflicting and different directions. My point being that no matter what happens next, they are set up to never give a satisfying story again. Set up that way by design.
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.
I haven't played rebirth (or any version of FF7 honestly) so I could be wrong but to be me it feels like a major issue is the producer Tetsuya Nomura. He's big on intrigue, curve balls, style, and the rule of cool. There's nothing wrong with those elements, but if you don't have people to focus that kind of storytelling it can make something look good or feel exciting in the moment, but doesn't always have staying power. He kinda reminds me of Steven Moffat; interesting ideas but needs others to channel those ideas
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.
at the very least, ff8 can shamelessly wear its convoluted writing like an unapologetic badge of honor. the ff7 remake feels like it's ashamed of itself because the writers are realising how much they're complicating a relatively straightforward story (that has basically already been written for them). they're in between completely changing the plot of the game and keeping it as true to the original at the same time, and somehow, they keep choosing the wrong option.
@@starbites1984 FF8 can wear it proudly because it was designed from the ground up to be that thing. With Remake they basically took themes and story bits that had nothing to do with the original and grafted them to the narrative... and I guess assumed no one would complain (when calling it Remake) or that it would somehow work out? I don't know, this whole FF7 remake project is bafflingly stupid and mismanaged.
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.
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.
The second saddest death in FF7 is Aerith's. The saddest death is when Testuya Nomura smothered FF7 Remake in its crib to replace it with Kingdom Fantasy 7 Hearts: Reimagined/364 days. I'm just waiting for Mickey Mouse to show up in Part 3
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
FFVII Rebirth is garbage writing, funny how three dudes written the concept to this sfest trilogy and would you youtubers please stop making excuses. Square milking the franchise, why would they call it a new journey begins, when it is just filler content following a outdated narrative to og, why even create chapter 18 in remake, just to follow original story narrative, it's a game full of filler rubbish and a sequel, what the FVII fan base don't actually realise is they set the franchise up now as a eternal conflict between Sephiroth and Aerith, where ever Aerith exist, Sephiroth will hunt her down, this is marketing to continue milking a franchise long outdated without a actual ending.
The writing is a really mixed bag. I feel like there is something good buried under mounds of directorial dung. Rufus giving Avalache a pass for their mutual benefit was a nice touch for example. Stuff to do with Barret and Yuffie, both of whom have legitimate axes to grind with Shinra, tend to be good scenes (specifically thinking of Barret telling the story of Corel and Yuffie's reaction to it). As much as I hate them showing Sephiroth all the time, casting doubt about Tifa is quite effective. But on the other hand you've got the cringe of the Gold Saucer, Hojo's machine vs the Johnny army, Red 13's baby boy voice and attitude, everything else in Junon that isn't Rufus letting Avalanche go. It's a real shame.
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.
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.
The FF franchise lost it's way, trying to make action games and ending up mediocre. And this Remake nonsense is nothing but a shameless cash grab milking the FF7 fanbois for all they're worth.
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 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.
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.
Being open minded or open to interpretation is what's good for any piece of media. It was with the original FFVII and it is now with the Remake project. However, I have do disagree with most of the video. There are MANY counterpoints I wanted to touch on, but I don't know a wall of text is what is needed. One point I've haven't seen being touch upon yet by anyone and was touched upon in the video with negative connotations, for some reason, is the relationships the party have between themselves WITHOUT Cloud. That's why the Aerith and Tifa's friendship was so good, why I immediately called that Tifa would be a mess by the end of the game just after the Kalm sequence (why is this friendship relegated as a ship is beyond me). That's why Barret, Nanaki and Yuffie's buddying relationship is great. In the original game, sans Tifa and Barret because you already meet him knowing her already and their stablished back story, all characters interact with each other only with Cloud present as the party leader except, and only except, when Cloud is missing and the party leader is either Tifa or Cid,. That is a limitation on the storytelling imposed by the platform and genre itself (i.e., a text-based JRPG with only FMV cutscenes). Having the characters actually feel like characters in Rebirth and not be dependant on Cloud being there for them to talk and grow as people is a plus, but gets no mention whatsoever. And many points brought on the video, like Barret's sudden quote-unquote "change of personality" or Tifa's "violence bad" arc can be traced back to Remake. Remember, even if Shinra's guilty of everything, Barret STILL feels guilt and/or responsability for his actions during Midgar that ultimately led to the destruction of Sector 7. During the Bombing Mission, in the original game and in Remake, Barret had a "shoot first, ask later" attitude, the ends-justify-the-means kind, not caring for collateral damage. But after Jessie, Wedge and Biggs, and the fall of Sector 7, Barret had experienced once a again the loss of his living place by Shinra after something he did may or may not have had an influence on what happened. I'm not saying it's Barret's fault, but either way Barret feels guilt and remorse. And that feeling is what leads to his change of attitude, even in Remake when he could have chose not to save the Shinra President and let him fall to his death, but instead he was able to see the bigger picture and saves him to try to persuade him into going full-transparent to the public on Shinra's involvment about the Reactor explosions and Sector 7. With Rufus, in the original game Barret wanted to kill him aboard the Shinra-8 but that's odd even for him because Rufus isn't responsible for what happened in Midgar, his father was but he is already dead and killing Rufus would do nothing for Barret. Also, the line Barret says in Rebirth about how Yuffie's assassination attempt saved them from the deal was on point, since he was reflecting on his own actions during North Corel and the construction of the Reactor. And with Tifa, in Remake when she and Cloud had to follow Johnny who was being detained and interrogated by Shinra Troopers during Chapter 3 and they had to deal with the Troopers, Tifa explicitly said Cloud he was scaring her after implying about killing the Troopers after the battle. Oh no, I started to write a wall of text.
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! :)
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.
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
the remakes' writing and scene direction feel very "corporate" to me, as in the dialogue is all written for any average person to enjoy with all the nuance removed. it also makes a LOT of scenes that i should find funny cringe. ff7 isnt a super overly-serious game but there isn't a single scene in the remakes where any character talks like a normal person imo. it feels like they're trying way too hard with everything and have to go over the top and shove any nuances of the original in your face. i don't get any of those same feelings playing the original ff7, ff14, or even ff16 which came out half a year earlier. i cant speak on most of the other modern ff titles as 14 and 16 are the only newer ones i've played, but i bet those games would be way less successful if they had a timeline-multiverse ghost plot shoved into their stories
I'm playing this with Japanese dub, English sub. I know some Japanese but I'm not fluent so subs are my safety net. The stuff in the English dialogue is vastly more cringe than the Japanese most the time. The English seems to be a lot of that typical western millennial writing that tries to be cute and edgy at the same time, whereas the Japanese is often more understated. With that said, there is still a lot of really bad stuff that makes my skin crawl regardless of language eg when you get to the Gold Saucer, which feels like they got an AI to write a homoerotic fever dream.
Thank you so much for this video, it really helped me put in perspective exactly why I overall just felt so... weird, and bad after finishing this game. There's small moments that made me smile, or laugh, of course, but overall it all just wraps around and around itself to the point of implosion. I take the biggest issue with how they've been treating Cloud's mental illness and trauma, in that suddenly it's not that at all. I realize they're trying to tell a different story, but there's something that stings about him just normally, suddenly, without any problems at all remembering Zack at this point in the story. This gets even worse when they fight together at the end like it's nothing, and not an event that feels like it should be a complete mental break for him. His memory loss and triggers, basically any time that Cloud acts weird, are suddenly credited to "degeneration", a concept I believe they're trying to tie in from Crisis Core. There's this push, as you stated about other things in the game like Cosmo Canyon, to give a "logical and/or Final Fantasy VII lore tie-in" explanation for everything, even things that really don't need that. Cloud's character loses so much of its punch and relatability when he's not just a person struggling with finding himself after trauma, and instead is just "another doomed SOLDIER" or whatever it is that they're trying to get across. I'm rambling, but this game just does that to me. It's so hard to talk about because there's so much of it. Wonderful job again on breaking it down even a little bit, with bonus points to your lovely voice and sense of humor! I'll definitely be checking out your other videos soon! :)
Nailed it. I also got the feeling that SE is afraid to chose, so they just do everything to satisfy everyone, which doesn't work. There is one theory for the ending I think I can live with - and that is Clouds mind building up this illusion of Aeris being alive so he doesn't break down, maybe even Jenova doing stuff (we do hear a creepy music when we see her alive when she should have died). But the obsession with Aeris in the game was a bit disgusting. Am I the only one who thinks it's totally OOC and not logic to perform a self-written song in the Golden Saucer theater? I just watched the ending of Crisis Core, I really miss the simple and effective writing of the last scene. All those riddles, confusion and mysterious lines especially Sephiroth says in Remake & Rebirth are not good storywriting. Did the ending of Remake have any effect to Rebirth? I still don't understand why the party has to fight against Sephiroth again and again and ... again, when he actually has no interest in killing Cloud.
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
I'm not gonna lie: This whole video kinda just felt like mindless complaining. I agree that the ending makes no sense and the multiverse concept is both boring and confusing. But you basically spent an hour complaining that the game isn't a beat for beat recreation of the original. I hate to break it to you, but if you didn't realize that this was a different game after Remake, you alone are responsible for your disappointment. And a lot of your criticisms don't even make sense. For example, it sounded more like you were angered by Tifa's "Fanservice" (Something that is both irrelevant and optional) than any of the storybeats. At no point in this story did I feel like Tifa's character didn't make sense or was annoying/unlikable. It's also 110% clear that Tifa is NOT a Jenova clone, IDK where on earth you got that from. Cloud ADMITS multiple times that Tifa DOES have a scar, proving she IS real. The only reason he attacks her in Gongaga is because Sephiroth convinces him that her having a scar doesn't matter since "Jenova can take any form". Hell, I actually prefer this Tifa and this Barrett to the original versions. I also wasn't bothered AT ALL by Red 13's VA, nor by the changes to Sid. Frankly, all of the complaints that YOU listed about the characters felt less like valid criticism and more like blind fanboying that everything isn't exactly the same. I got the impression that unless this game was a turn-by-turn platformer that had the EXACT same story as the original, you weren't going to like it. And that is FINE! Just say that though and move on. But don't patronize us by acting like the new game is some kind of disgusting perversion.
I'm not going to lie, it seems like you didn't even listen to the video and decided it was mindless complaining, so to be fair, I'm going to decide that your comment is mindless complaining. He used specific examples of the OG game to illustrate the tension that allowed players to relate and care about the cast. I never played OG7 before and after uninstalling Remake, it has left a sour taste in my mouth. The pacing is all over the place (which makes sense when you stretch a tutorial section over 5 hours). I simply couldn't give two sh××s about the characters or environmentalist/terrorist/corporate analogies. A lot of your complaints here don't make sense. For example, it sounds like you're more angry at the fact that the person criticizing is able to pinpoint and specify what they dislike.
@@GreyException I did listen to the mindless droning of this video. And no, he wasn’t able to pinpoint issues, he spent the vast majority of the video going “This wasn't in the original, therefore i hate it." Even when stuff is expanded on, it's met with complaining and whining. Rebirth is a GOOD game, a good game that is utterly ruined by the ending and by an insistence on using a multiverse where none belongs. Is it different from the original? Yes. Do I care? No. Should ANYONE care about it being different? Absolutely Not. Grow up and get over it
@@kylewilson2819 if you concluded that his specifications about tension in the OG vs lack of tension in the Remake is "it's not the same therefore I hate it" you didn't listen. You simply chose to put words in their mouth because it's easier to tear down. Listen to yourself. You think others should "not care, grow up and get over it" yet here you are, caring about other peoples opinions enough to tell them they shouldn't have them, unable to get over it.
Yep the criticism towards tifa doesnt make sense in a single bit. Tifa in the og ff7 was even worse. She knw there's something wrong abt cloud and his nibleheim story, but she nvr ever confronted him. I feel like many of the criticism are simply because they're different. He doesnt care if that difference is there to fix the plot hole from OG FF7.
Vincent was always intended to have a bigger story in the og but was cut due to disc space & the main story/characters focus. Same as Yuffie. So we got stuck with them as side characters & very little backstory. Dirge of Cerberus helped flush his story out somewhat but meh game
YES 👏 Finally, some criticism on the cutscenes, even just a little. The camera cannot, will not, linger on a shot. The dollie’s have to move so much, the editing was giving me anxiety and I just felt tired watching a 1 minute scene feel like 5 minutes
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!
I feel like I did a lot of work in trying to separate which parts of my dissatisfaction was my being annoyed about small stakes changes and which feels more like deeper concerns with the remake's vision, but I hope you find the video interesting! Sorry you had to see the comments and have, on some level, got wrapped up in this lol
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?
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..
They changed his entire character and the tragedy of who he was. In the original he even hinting at killing Marlene. He was an entirely different person in the original. Not to say originals are always better but in this case his og character was more thought provoking, more tragic and less generic.
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 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.
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.
Rebirth is what it’s like to get your favorite book turned into a movie. It gets mangled by the Hollywood machine into something easy to digest for the average consumer and strips it of what made it so special in the first place. Gone is the nuance. Gone is the commitment. Why actually commit to an idea that might upset people? It’s all about the “sUbVeRtInG eXpEcTaTiOnS” bullshit that writers cling to for dear life because it generates discussion and clips on CZcams. You can subvert expectations well. Hell, Aerith’s death in the original game is a perfect example of that. But, these modern cash grabs don’t do it for the purpose of a compelling narrative. It’s all about controversy, views, top 10 theories about what will happen next videos on CZcams. Final Fantasy VII is 27 years old and people still talk about Aerith’s death to this day. They made a reference to it in fucking Wreck It Ralph for crying out loud. Does anybody really think people will be talking about this multiverse hogwash 27 years from now? Tl;dr - The book is always better than the movie and the Original FF7 will always, ALWAYS be better than the Remake.
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).
@@lulu_TheWitchBoy i've watched three full playthroughs of remake before i ever got a chance to play it on pc. even after knowing i didn't like the story i still gave it a chance. that's when i bounced off it
"A complete misunderstanding of what the games about" Oh yes, please tell me more about what the games about random person on the internet with 3 hours of game time, as opposed to the LITERAL CREATORS of the original. The arrogance of people is truly astouding sometimes.
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.
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 just recently caught up to rebirth. I enjoy some of the changes they've made but there are so new many choices made that leave such a bad taste in my mouth, it's hard to swallow. Your sentiments outline mine almost exactly. Barret is done so dirty, Tifa is done so dirty, Cait Sith is done so squeaky clean (which is a dirty move). The ending it's hard to find any emotional resonance to because they break up the emotional climax with a 2 hour long boss rush with more phases than ever spread out across multiple dimensions, bring her back, kill her again, bring her back, kill her again... In the fight wih regular -ass sephiroth he uses the killing skewer on cloud zach and aerith so many times it's a wonder he's ever actually finished anyone off with that sword before. The bombastic action is so wrong. Characters are doing witty quips like it's a marvel movie while their friend just die like, moments ago (or hours ago depending on how time is moving who can say) I was explaining to my spouse about how the question leading into this game was will they save Aerith this time, and should they? And for the answer to be a resounding "yes, but actually no, but also maybe" feels so flat. Like sure ambiguity means they can pay off the answer later but like... This was the part of the story where that needed to be decided! They had a luxurious 120 hours to tell this story so far and said "alright tune in next time!!" Then i had to explain some weird dimension hopping stuff going on leading to the ambiguity of the ending and i could see my spouse's soul leave thier body.
I don't really agree with most of what you said, I think the majority of the game is great. But the stuff with Tifa and party not questioning Cloud's outrageous mental health issues is a sticking point for me, and I definitely agree the ending is a complete train wreck.
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 ☹️
It's less canonization, and more cohesion. The goal is to make the entire compilation feel more cohesive, and less like a progression in the storytelling.
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
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.
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.
I loved the original ending because the its open ended nature leaves it open for all sorts of interpretations, I always interpreted it as the adults who corrupted the planet dying but the children living on as they are representation of the future and our chance at saving our planet from the previous generations mistakes
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.
Against my better judgement based on the title, I clicked on this video. There are a lot of needlessly vile takedown pieces coming out about Rebirth, and I expected something with this title to be exactly that. But I clicked on it anyway for reasons I don't understand (I do seek out opinions that disagree with my own to see why others feel the way they do, but generally not ones that use such hyperbolic and caustic language so readily). And to my surprise this video ISN'T just a hostile, thoughtless rant about how the game is 'overrated', that proceeds to fill itself with vapid nitpicks. There are valid thoughts here, and there are valid criticisms. Some of which I even agree with. That being said, I had to stop around halfway through, because I unfortunately have to admit that it feels like you're drowning those valid criticisms in "I know I'm overreacting, but..." every... single... step of the way. I get that it's a bit; it's part of your writing schtick. And doing it one or two times per video this length, would be okay. But you do it so often that at a certain point, I can't tell what you're presenting as a fair criticism, and what is simply you venting about your personal gripes in a way you acknowledge may not be fair. I don't know if you're using this as a shield? I absolutely understand as a """video essay games critic content creator""" myself, that people can be... really dang toxic. And so sometimes you feel like you have to try and shield yourself from some of it. But either way, it's taken too far for me here. If I'm being expected to take your thoughts here seriously, I have to be able to differentiate between what you really want to share with me as an audience member, and the chaotic, ranty interjections that you acknowledge are purely born from your own personal tastes. It's especially frustrating because we seem to have a fair amount in common. You have a video talking about Spoony's negative effect on media criticism, which I'm just about to watch because my god I at very least agree with that core sentiment, lol. And right at the start of that video you say you love FFXIII, as do I. You also mentioned in this video that you had issues with how CC handles Zack's relationship with Shinra, which - as someone who feels Crisis Core is one of the worst stories I've ever experienced in any bigger budget narrative, in any medium - I'm picking up what you're putting down. But similar to Spoony ironically enough, the aforementioned lack of clarity between the topics you actually want to explore and your own personal overreactions to Rebirth kind of end up like... for lack of a better term... a fence sitting 'mask'. One of the major problems I have with Spoony (other than his obsession with just pointing random nitpicks out and then CinemaSins-ing them), is that he hides behind the mask of comedy. Intermingling comedy and criticism can be great. But they still need to be separated enough, for the sake of clarity and honesty. With Spoony and his fanbase though, when it's beneficial to their argument, everything he says is "legitimate criticism". But when it's not, suddenly it's "just a joke that you're taking too seriously". It sits in this intentionally vague limbo aimed at having his cake and eating it too, to deflect criticism of his usually awful critique. This video kind of (unintentionally, I think) feels the same way, to a lesser extent. When you're constantly deflecting to "I'm overreacting here.", it feels like I'm being gaslit in a way, whether I take your points seriously or not. And it even at points leads to you effectively saying "This is absolutely me just taking things too far.", and then... not giving any real reasoning or more 'legitimate' point after that. As if you forgot what you were meaning to explore beyond the initial rant. But at the same time it feels like I'm still expected to take your rant seriously? I dunno. It's just very confusing. I hope this doesn't come off as mean, or preachy. My ultimate point here is that I WANTED to enjoy this video more than I actually was, and that I feel like you have the skill to avoid undercutting your own ideas like this. I don't think you need to act like I shouldn't take them seriously, and fill them with suddenly hostile language. By all means, share your thoughts that you feel are less fair to the game, and also share your more grounded points. I just think this video is in desperate need of clarity, because stumbling around as if "maybe I'm just being an asshole, or maybe I'm not; I dunno", really just led to me being frustrated and confused more than anything else. It's obviously possible that this isn't indicative of your style as a whole. Either way, I'm excited to try the Spoony video right after this comment is posted, and then see if I can find the one you referenced about Zack.
Okay I don't understand how Barret teling everyone else not to trust Shinra no matter who's in charge goes against his principles. The guy who's constantly going on about how Shinra is terrible and not trustworthy doing the same thing on the ship somehow goes against his principles? That makes no sense to me, then when you tried to support that point by going into the Dyne scene, at least I think that's what you wanted to do because it did NOT work, only to show a negative bias towards the scene (which is fine) but also might've not quite understood it maybe? The original Dyne scene is vastly superior, don't get me wrong, but it's pretty clear in the Remake that Dyne wanted Barret to keep living with the ONE thing he hates him for, that he won't just give him an easy escape while he himself clearly can't handle his own baggage, he just doesn't wanna admit it like the douchebag he is
Its the same voice actor who does both voices though...i assume the direction he got was exactly to sound like this, to punch home the fact he still was a child/teenager
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
20:35 I know I've been leaving a lot of comments lol, but why did they need to change the Gi? The idea of them becoming too bitter to enter the lifesteam worked better than this. It served as a lesson to Nanaki that he couldn't become that way over his father. And why are they aliens now??? What does that add???
I disagree. The old Gi were just forgettable angry spirit things. This actually gave them some significance to the Planet, as well as tap into the subtle galaxy-level plot of Jenova, the Planet, Cetra, and Humans. Nothing was really lost, it was only improved imo.
Some things being forgettable is needed though otherwise everything is linked to main plot thread and it becomes an absolute mess. Not only was it not needed but it creates a plot hole. In the og the Gl were a rival tribe that tried to sneak into Cosmo canyon through the back door in a pincer attack, which is why red thought seto ran away. If the GI actually "lives" there then seto running in there could in no way misunderstood as fleeing but charging into enemy territory with no possible exit. They also now have to hand wave the fact that the Gl have an unexplained way to get past the seal but attacked Cosmo canyon instead of thier new motive of looking for the black materia, the reason they wanted out in the first place. The only thing this solves is why the Gl became undead instead of joining the life stream in the original, but was something that this explains, there are other undead in the setting are we to assume they are aliens too?
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.
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.
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.
Out of the three FF7 remake installments, the only one I enjoyed funnily enough was Intermission (Yuffie’s story) Unfortunately they changed who she was a bit, considering all of the character growth she experienced in that dlc, they simplified her and took away some of her integrity and meaningfulness. She just became a bit of a clown and kissed up to the party. Yuffie from intermission had guts and panache. She wouldn’t have begged Cloud to take her. Even beyond that, she was forced into the court jester role. She had a lot of emotion and maturity under that 16 yearold exterior atleast in the sense that she had character and self worth. It’s ok if a character is written without self worth, but in intermission’s case she was silly and goofy and it was easy to write her off but every now and then she had really great moments where she would exceed expectations. It was a short story but I think better told than Rebirth and Remake which were just clear victims of corporatized for profit bureaucracy. The constant meddling of the PC police, the “will this reach more audiences” authorities and the “will this sell the next game” dictators. The constant story threads all eventually fizzling out to nothing rewarding or conclusive. A giant cock tease leading to the one moment that could earn it some respect - to follow through with Aeriths death but of course not. No guts, no glory - the best example of the definition. It’s almost as if they didn’t want to hurt anyones feelings by killing her in the most diplomatic way possible but no, it’s worse than that. They actually did want to have their cake and eat it too, but at the expense of you the audience experiencing any glimpse of drama or tragedy. As if your heart and mind were bred by corporations your entire lives.. oh wait. That’s probably true and thats why Monday meeting board room data analysis showed them they should make the safest most generic, and soggy death scene possible.
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.👍
This was a well put together essay, and while I don’t hold exactly the same opinions as you, I do agree with your overall message about this game being cowardly. I got into “Final Fantasy VII” partially because I was extremely intrigued by the possibilities that “Remake” seemed to set up: that fate can be changed and that characters don’t have to be bound by the roles that have been pre-determined for them. So playing “Rebirth” and finding out that no, Cloud, Aerith, and Sephiroth are all glued to their roles tighter than ever, and the only difference being Aerith and Sephiroth are now using Cloud as a Pawn/Queen/King-hybrid in their cosmic multiverse game of 4D Chess, was disappointing to say the least. To me, “Rebirth” didn’t feel rancid: it felt hollow. There were so many things going on in this game, and yet at the same time, I don’t feel as emotionally satisfied as I should, to say nothing of how the narrative feels like something is fundamentally missing something. As you pointed out in building up new intrigue and mysteries, the game forgot to consider what it’s core message is and what it wants to say, other than “Tune in next time, where we’ll answer all the questions, promise! 😜” Also, loved your discussion of Tifa, her scar, and the softening of Shinra. I honestly have no idea what they’re trying to do with Tifa’s story arc this time around, and in a way I think it’s interesting that Tifa seems to have a lot of doubts about Cloud at the end of “Rebirth” to the point it may impact how Cloud finds himself again. But at the same time, I doubt they will actually take that risk, since “Rebirth”, as Jackson Tyler pointed out in an episode of “Abnormal Mapping”, has a habit of *seeming* like it’ll do something interesting but doesn’t actually do anything. Also, seeing her constantly objectified in ways that are honestly more insidious than any jiggle physics from the original game’s cutscenes, especially when a major part of her character now is her physical trauma on top of her emotional & psychological traumas, is rather gross. Also, love how the game tries to de-claw Shinra and put all the blame for the evil stuff solely on Sephiroth…even when the planet dying, Sephiroth’s very existence and his plans to destroy the world are all direct or indirect results of Shinra’s cruelty and callousness in their reckless pursuit of profits. (To say nothing of the ongoing SOLDIER degradation plot, war crimes against Wutai, massive class divide across the world, and their inhuman treatment of living beings period). All of this to say, I *wanted* to like this game more than I do, there are still things that I genuinely love about it, but as you pointed out this game’s cowardice and wishy-washy approach to storytelling really hold it back. Even if the third game turns out to go back to subverting expectations and telling a compelling story, it won’t change the fact that they wasted a *lot* of time on this one, and refused to fully take the plunge to say something interesting. Also, glad to see another Roche lover, he was, and still is, one the best parts of the trilogy project. I’m not looking forward to whatever he will be subjected to in the final game. 😢
The game is not cowardly at all. It changes the whole narrative and plot points of the OG which is a bold and brave thing for the creators to do. It would have been more cowardly to play it safe and just do a 1:1 version of the game.
@@andrewjmp3494yes and no. I love this game and am still enjoying playing it, but one of the things I’ve noticed most and said to others is that it really shies away from uncomfortable topics or visceral violence. In the original there is nothing heroic about Dynes death. He is a man deeply troubled by what he has done, and decides to kill himself. There’s no heroic charge to kill Shinra troops and protect his former friend. He commits suicide. It’s visceral, uncomfortable and profound. It has time to breathe. In rebirth, you’re immediately confronted by Palmer as the main party because of the scenario they’ve set up. This could have worked if they let Barrett and Dyne play out their drama and have him return and confront Palmer physically elsewhere in the game. Or, let it cut to the party literally anywhere else dealing with the Turks and Palmer. Creating that physical distance between these events allows the story beat between Dyne and Barrett breathe more. The same is true with anyone being murdered with a sword. Jump cuts away from the physical act of someone being murdered. The OG literally makes you watch sephiroth slide his sword into Aerith. It’s an act of very intimate violence, that punctuates the moment of her death. It’s fine if they want to go in a different direction with the story, but robbing these moments of their poignancy in service of that vision is what I personally have an issue with. I say this with a lot of love for the franchise and rebirth specifically, but I feel like they can be so much more bold with these story beats.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING THIS MAN!!! Through all the gaslighting spread by people who seem strangely hurt by any sort of negative critique or anything of the game, you have touched on exactly what made this game so bitterly disappointing, and honestly quite disgusting, to me. It's like you've read my thoughts. The tone of this game is... 🤢, especially considering the original's beautiful dance with grounded poignancy (which is what made me love it so much). It is truly a Disney'ificiation, a massively sensationalist piece of media, designed to shy away from any sort of near troubling themes or questions - it doesn't want you to truly ponder on itself. The comment section is truly an absolute calamity, so I hope this reaches you man! Again, thank you!
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.
Not if you have half a brain to grasp what you are watching. It promotes critical thinking and didn’t take anything away from the people who realized what was being shown. It left Enough to hurt more than the original even being that the voice actor and writing did an amazing job bringing the characters to life and feel for them especially in the last 2 chapters. Haters gonna hate have your opinion but just because you couldn’t get it doesn’t mean that it just blanket takes away all emotional impact from the moment. They made some mistakes bothing is perfect but anybody being objective about it will say this was one of the best games of all time.
The game itself is good but the story telling just feels weaker from the original, that's the issue many people have.
@@ProudFather1003 in sorry but your faking emotion impact. There isn’t anything added that is better than the original and the only stuff that id good is the stuff that was properly remade from the original. When your saying you like this better your actually saying you like Roche and Glenn.
@@rangerscoach jumping to poor conclusions. You sound like an AI. Bot
@@rangerscoachive seen ppl like roache idk about glenn tho
Cid got cancel cultured bad. Our boy was a foul mouthed, cig smoking bad ass ! Best character in the og by far just for his dialogue
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.
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.
Thank you so much for this. It's weird to be on the receiving end of this bandwagon approach to FF criticism admittedly, but like, as an old school FF13 defender this is nothing new to me lol
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.
The point wasn't that Barret not wanting to cut a deal with Rufus doesn't make any sense, the point is "why did Cloud and Tifa agree to the terms when they both personally know Barret's daughter is in Midgar?" It's not that Barret should've accepted it--far from it. The entire party should've refused it without question. They all hate Shinra, and accepting a deal that cuts Barret completely out of contact with his adoptive daughter is ridiculously out-of-character.
@@TheMightyNovacBecause technically it’s still possible to get Marlene out of Midgar
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!
Thank you so much for this comment. I have, in a limited capacity, a similar experience, if it helps to commiserate a little. I remember getting to Aerith's death in the OG well after it was spoiled for me and finding it deeply moving and tragic, but not something that was nearly as intense as some of my friends talked about. But, by the time I got around to re-recording the first disc to get footage for this video, I've had a very, very different relationship with death. I just recently lost 4 grandparents within the span of 2 years, and late last year I lost a dear friend to a medical complication during surgery, a completely unplanned, unexpected shot from the dark. And this time around getting to the Sealed Forest brought me to tears because of exactly what you were talking about here. That kind of sudden, brutal loss that leaves you living with these phantoms of who this person was, in my case pages and pages of discord logs and messenger app histories... I dunno, it's excruciating, it's unfair, and it's something that all the novelty and intrigue baked into the redo of her death did not manage to secure. Even if she is dead and these are just his hallucinations, that's Hollywood stuff, it's overdone, fantastical pain on a grand stage, it doesn't compare to revisiting the church in the original and maybe seeing silent visions of her at the garden that you can't interact with. Just little ghosts of who this person was. Brutal.
Anyways, now I'm rambling, thank you so much for this comment, again.
I just ranted as well (though in a much shorter fashion) as another boomer who loved the OG and this sincere and developped feedback means a lot to embiterred nerds like me. Thank you so much.
The themes of this game are different and after all this setup would be disappointing to end the same way
Cool story bro
The more I hear about the original the more I feel like I missed out since I've never played it. But I agree with all of the critiques because it feels like a chore to get through the story and there isn't much emotionally going for me. Except frustration from all the mini-games
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.
Ya know, I was coming down here to make a big long comment, but I think you touched on pretty much everything.
Maybe I'm just a sucker, idk, but Rebirth feels to me like a massive labor of love, and as a contrast to the video, it feels like much of the game was made with fans like myself in mind. Thinking of it as "sinister" honestly just bothers me, if it was cynical it wouldn't be so indulgent lol.
And as you stated, a lot of the mentioned character issues don't bother me. Cid was disappointing because I wanted to see how they handled rocket town, but it's been said in interviews that they're looking at that plotline for the third one.
Or like during the parade, I figured Barret was stopping Yuffie because Barret is passionate and cares about his friends, and making that assassination attempt with his friends right up there was a bad idea. I guess you could argue he's usually impulsive, but I can buy that at the end of the day the people he cares for matter the most.
It was an interesting watch, though, even if I feel so completely different
Because of your dissertation I'm now pretty sure I won't agree with a portion of the video, because you just summarized everything I feel about the game XD Thanks for putting it into words.
I have never read a comment that more strongly and completely echoed my own feeling and sentiments on anything before this moment.
I wanted to let you know that I appreciate the positive vibe I got from your comment and you shouldn't let the opinions of others diminish your enjoyment in retrospect. At the end of the day, you still had a good time. take those critiques and use them to understand the perspectives of those who find issue with the game. if you find them to be valid issues that you felt as well, that's fine too, but its absolutely ok to separate your criticism of the game from your enjoyment and positive memory of the experience. i personally find it to be a better process to come in with limited expectations, let the art show me what it wants to, enjoy it for what it is and then critique it after having experienced it for what it is rather then what I wanted it to be. This might sound really stupid, but I find that I have a much better time, even with things I may not like as much, when approaching them this way. It has allowed me to have a good time with things I probably would have hated if i had come in looking for things to dislike.
Sometimes passion can blind you, for better or for worse. I'm a very critical and analytical person by nature, so its easy for me to "ruin" things for myself and other people. I try to remind myself of this when going into something so that I can reign in those impulses a bit, cuz when all's said and done, I'd rather have a good time then a bad one, and in many of these cases I've discovered that I'm the one who ultimately makes that choice. (obviously does not apply to all things but I thought I'd throw this in just in case)
At the end of it all I really enjoyed this video. I appreciate the level and type of discussion it moves towards but I also think it goes too hard on the angle of cynicism or corporate perversion of the original IP or concepts. I came away with some solid new concepts to consider and if that's not the point then I don't know what is.
Damn, that line "it always does give me pause and make me wonder if maybe I experience things too generously." Really hits hard.
I'm with you guys, there's critiques i have of the game like Life Springs could be removed entirely and the game would be fine XD and like the video, I didn't love how they handled Cosmo Canyon or Bugenhagen in the MSQ. I know Bugenhagen gets a better resolution in a side quest, but he was a little mean at the beginning.
Beyond that though, I largely enjoyed the story and the game play and whenever I had a question like "wait wha?" it more often than not got answered. Very excited for part 3 and the theories to come! Godspeed friends.
I think what you say is pretty fair. The only real thing I criticize, and I've done this with the original game, is Aerith's feelings for Cloud. I truly do not understand how it can be this strong even with everything they have been through prior to her death when much of it is based on a past boyfriend. The only reason this even is something I'm critical of is because the ending of Rebirth really is about her and how she feels about Cloud and everyone. It's like, Cloud's resemblance to Zack got him through the door, but it's not the reason he got to stay in the house if that makes but I don't really find it convincing to be anything more than friendship. That is kind of the same for Tifa as well, but hers is much more convincing to me. More importantly though, I think you're approach to judging it for what it is in good faith is exactly what we need. It's not like the people who like Rebirth like everything about it. I love this game and I still have only cautiously optimistic feelings toward this story, gameplay is for the most part great. I love that I'm given another mystery because the old one really isn't a mystery anymore. The fact that we are speculating on what happens next is proof this game has become a relevant topic again.
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.
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.
Let me guess, you are one of those people that think the themes of the original were about death and loss?
@@mikev8746 The original isn't even about death, death is merely the vehicle for its themes. But its theme isn't fighting fate either, that's also just a vehicle. So far Remake/Rebirth has made fighting fate a much more central theme. It remains to be seen if that's the overall theme or not.
@@mikev8746 The main theme is life, and to portray life you need death and death means you have grief. Remake and Rebirth does everything it can to lessen the crash aspects of death, loss and grief and barely even touches life except realiving people right before our eyes, regardless if it is a whisper deliminator or alternative memory/whatever world.
@@vincentgraymore That's bullshit, who told you that? The theme of these games/game is literally self discovery, acceptance, finding a purpose etc. It's the whole arc every character and especially Cloud goes through. People saying it's about life and death are just trying to sound edgy or just parrot the most distilled fan opinion on FF7. And regarding life that's a very vague theme I'd say.
@@coolguychecker7329 I'd say that as a remake of something. You kind of end up with either fate as a theme. Especially if you end up changing things around and approaching it from the whole Friedrich Nietzsche angle with the lifestream being some vehicle of expressing endless reoccurance. Which at the very least is a very interest idea for a remake trilogy. But as you said it has to still show the fruits of its labor or the failure thereof.
So far though I think Retrilogy is just applyfing the themes of the original. Which isn't about death. But rather about self discovery, acceptance, finding a purpose again etc. Death is just a vehicle to drive these story concepts home as you said. And it doesn't have to be death. Some characters face death but allot of versions of loss are covered. This then is used to create a satisfying arc on these characters.
Retrilogy takes this concept from what I feel is the case. And introduces things like fate. And makes us question if we had the chance to do things over. Would we do it differently? And the answer is we would like to ideally. But in the end we always make the same choices. Cause thats who we've always been and always will be. The FF7 characters included, Remake or OG. And so the theme is less about fate itself and more about accepting and finding peace with our choices.
Ofcourse it's still the OG being remade too so while the meta narrative of the remake is all this. The central theme of the original lies within it unchanged. Atleast that's what it's going towards. Part 3 would be the deciding factor. But I like the set up so far.
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.
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
Yeah your point isn’t very clear. Could you rephrase?
@@uriel_n_diaz the new elements don’t add anything to the story’s themes and are mostly intrigue and subversion for their own sake rather than compliment anything. They pick and choose when to sprinkle in the new elements but otherwise try to tell the main story but worse most of the time.
The new story material is literally just about the original plot and doesn’t seem to have any complimentary theme to justify not just making a proper remake and adding compilation elements
@@Djamp_htx honestly, I can see that. I mostly like what they’ve done with the visuals.
What a bad take. If you think the additions don’t add to the original themes then you really didn’t understand a lot of the original
@@stephen8342 commenting on the original story/meta commentary (especially in such contrived, “I’m 15 and this is deep” ways) is not the same as adding to its themes
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...
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)."
Bruh - we already KNOW where it all is going, even if you never play it. You cant not know the major story beats because people discuss this game ad nauseum online. So no matter how much they mangle the fuck out of this shit in telling it your still getting the major beats. Sephiroth bad cloud mental af tifa is bestie barret is eco terrorist with a troubled past aerith is good and dies sephy summons meteor cloud and co whoop his ass to make the way clear for holy . Doesnt matter how they try to knot this shit up that is the roadmap
They are making it up as they go along. For example the Lifestream has nothing to do with different timelines or universes. That was a massive retcon in a non canon book written 20 years later that nobody cares about.
@@jaedaniels3025 If the journey to those story beats is stupid and baffling then that in turn makes the story beats not land as well. Moreover, they fucked up the story beats as well. You are acting like plot points are the only things that matter to fans of Final Fantasy VII. Newsflash - it's the actually story and specific moments and characters as well as the journey with those characters that fans care about.
@@jaedaniels3025 We love the original because we exactly know WHERE it is going. Nobody, literally nobody of the OG fans, asked for any surprises, except for current gen graphics that blow us away and a crazy combat system, which we got. But nobody asked to butcher the OG story and pivotal scenes into a completely ridicoulus and absolutely low iq script.
@@dshearwf 100% correct. I along with many other FF7 were crying tears of joy in 2015 when the Remake project was announced. Not a single person at the time asked for it to be split up into 3 parts and shoe horn in a multiverse.
“Ready to call you a slur energy” >>>>>
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.
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
I am totally agree with you. For example i like the og game and did not like all games in the franchise afterwards. My friend like Crisis core game, because he had the psp and it was one of the best game for this console.
The compilation is a garbage fire
Yes the compilation is your standard anime, something like naruto, this shounen like action fest. While the original is also anime but more like something like Evangelion, kinda mysterious and bizarre
You're not off base. The AC-esque FF7 you're talking about is essentially the so called Compilation of FF7 (google it up if not familiar with). It was never a planed part of the original plan, primarily built due to Square wanting to milk the exceptional success of the original FF7. Before FFVII, no single final fantasy title got sequels, prequels, manga, a movie (even the OG FF movie was its own original story, kinda like the games were), etc.
As you said, it is not to say there is nothing good on it, but I am not even commenting on its quality or what I like or dont about it. The point is that the divide you feel is real, they were not created equal, and it is only the latter that fits Squares marketing/business strategy moving forward after og FF7, and so that is the image that gets pushed.
I've felt this way since 2003. You can really tell a difference between official merchandise sold pre-sqenix merger and post, even just in the way things are styled and marketed. Also, up until that point, no FF game had ever been connected. What did the series do right around and following the merger? They made FFX-2 and Advent Children to capitalize on the success and milk their IPs.
At the time I felt like I saw which way things were going and swore off supporting Sqenix any further after Dirge of Cerberus released (that was my breaking point after X-2, XII, AC, and all the stuff I really didn't like that diverged severely from the Square I knew.) and honestly, I haven't regretted it at all. Final Fantasy is not what it was. I was so happy when I discovered Mistwalker (a studio of primarily ex-Square employees headed by none other than Hironobu Sakaguchi himself) and while they haven't put out very many games in the past 20 years, what they have done, feels far more in keeping with the soul of Final Fantasy than anything Sqenix has done.
I had a tiny bit of hope in the back of my mind for FF7 remake, (the story was right there laid out for them. all they had to do was make the graphics look nice and stick to the script!) but all the experiences I've had with Sqenix over the past 2 decades led me to believe that they were incapable of creating anything more than a messy, flashy product, which ultimately is devoid of any real soul. It's a bit vindicating to hear people talk about the decline I've seen in this series for the past 2 decades, but it still sucks, and it still makes me sad and wish for what we could've had.
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.
You mean how they were held at gun point and could have been killed, think about what was happening.
@@Keasy91
1. Being held at a gunpoint hasn't stopped the party before from defying Shinra.
2. Yuffie assassinating Rufus would have caused a a big enough distraction for the party to go on the offensive or run.
3. They still had to fight their way out anyway since Rufus blamed the assassination attempt on them.
4. The party knows Shinra can't be trusted. So even entertaining Rufus' offer is a bad idea. Which is why Barret stopping Yuffie from killing Rufus, but then later saying she did them a favor is ridiculous.
5. The whole plan of trying to talk to Rufus or 'rough him up a bit' as Barret put it is dumb to begin with. Aerith mentioning how she just wanted an answer for why the Turks said the party isn't the target, but then Roche challenges Cloud. They weren't trying to negotiate since Shinra can't be trusted, they don't have the power to intimidate someone like Rufus into following their demands. Trying to get close to Rufus was a bad idea from the start unless the goal was to eliminate him. Yuffie had the right idea.
@@Keasy91how were they held at gunpoint? Shinra aren’t going to kill them live on TV or after they cut the feed, live infront of hundreds of on lookers 😂
@@ItsSVO idk blowing up the reactors, avalanche propaganda you forget this is shinra the umbrella corporation of ff7
@@Keasy91 Propoganda doesn’t really work when the act is caught on live or seen by the public. Hence my point. 👍🏼
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.
You put it perfectly. All this change and nonsense, but to what end? Some confusing half-effort to be original while somehow also being unoriginal. What a mess.
This game will win GOTY without earning it. As if GOTY means anything anymore.....
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.
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 very much, I'm glad you liked it!
How can you say Rebirth had any "continuity porn" though? They don't even reference the compilation that often to begin with. Sounded like they just don't like the compilation at all so when it does show up it ruins her day instead of being a fun nod.
@@hydrocosmo My point is in regards to the multiverse stuff - Nojima has said that he wants tie the entire FFVII subseries together with this 7R project, but the OG, Compilation and 7R trilogy contradict each other too much. Thus, it seems that he decided a multiverse was the only way he could do that. Unfortunately, the addition of a multiverse ends up cheapening the narrative emotionally.
That's what I meant by continuity porn: Nojima is trying too hard to canonize the entire FF7 subseries, at the expense of the Remake trilogy's story.
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.
imo, rebirth is going the same way as remake. the initial release is gonna be where it gets the most handholding and padded praise, and about a year out, everyone is going to look back and go "wait a minute, this game dropped the ball".
Not sure why it goes like that, but that's what i see happening.
@@vla1ne It's because of content creators. People forget it's their literal job to praise anything, that's how they earn their money. A maximilian dood has no idea of final fantasy, but as a contractor for sponsorships his opinion is set from the start. Then you have the bot infested social media and bought out "journalism" reinforcing and drowning out everything else and after the market cycle ends and the ACTUAL critics appear through the algorithm, you get a clearer perspective, if you haven't managed to form a decision and opinion for yourself all this time.
Me and my friends who grew up with the OG were all heartbroken in a very negative sense after Remake. It doesn't matter what any content creator clown says, it was our memories of a great piece of art shattered in this moment and with such a ending it was crystal clear the next two titles will not be able to salvage anything from that and indeed, they made it even worse.
@@dshearwf didn't buy remake because I have a "no day 1 buy" policy (with the sole exception of earth defense force).
Remake convinced me not to buy any of the new ff7 games, at the absolute least, until the trilogy is complete. Watching how the story's progressed, it's hard for me to see why it's getting so much praise. Sure, the battle system looks good, but how the hell is that story so well regarded when it's basically a watered down og, with less reason to invest in the characters?
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.
"Nobody acts like that" bro you do not realize how little some people care for others. I saw a homeless dude trying desperately to keep his sick dog warm in New York in January and NOBODY else stopped to try and help him. Everyone just walked by.
That scene was not a false reality. It's the reality some people face every day.
@@StormSnake0618 yeah, people just ignore others. That has nothing to do with what I said. People don't see little girls in the street who are asking for help and just laugh in their face and tell them to piss off. That never happens. Your example had nothing to do with this fact.
@@ericmcmanus5179 You vastly underestimate how disgusting some people are dude. Some people do not care, and if you bother them in any way, they will give you shit for it. I wish you were right, but you're not, at least not in a blanket statement "that never happens" way.
@@StormSnake0618 people are very rude. I just have never even seen videos of adults laughing in a child's face when the child asks for help because her mother is dying. I have never ever seen any videos or heard any stories of adults laughing in the face of a child who is asking them for help. I can't find that anywhere.
@@ericmcmanus5179people often bitch on twitter about how much they hate children in a very not normal way, way beyond just a “kids are annoying,” way, and yet you find it unfathomable that people on the street would act that way to a struggling child. Yeah, your comment seems to suggest a lack of real world life experience. Can’t take it seriously.
I have loved FF7 since I first played it in 1997 and original compilation defender but... what they've done with Remake/Rebirth/Battle Royale/Ever Crisis is an outright travesty. The multiverse stuff just ruined it. "no one is ever really gone". Rebirth is half mini games half outdated open world design like from 15 years ago mixed with Kingdom Hearts story skullduggery.
My issue was the cait sith not holding Marlene hostage, dyne not unaliving himself and wanting to have Marlene join her mother in the after life, red 13's moment with his father was also ruined by not giving it enough space and time to breathe.
A lot of the heaviest moments in the original final fantasy 7 and dark moments were watered down either because some big boss fight. They want you to get into right after the heavy moment or just simply taking out the darker parts...
That said, I love the game. But none of it's heavy moments hit the same at all.
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.
Yeah, I definitely agree. This is also my issue with Sephiroth and why I don’t like the Remake portrayal of him all that much. They shoehorn Sephiroth into scenes way too much. It makes him come off as just an annoying and obnoxious character who likes to babble and meow about a bunch of cryptic nonsense. It’s just kinda comical and silly. Like, I’m sorry that I can’t take it seriously. Though I kinda wish that he would just go away or shut the hell up already. I just ponder if this is the consequence of him being such a popular and marketable character to the point where they believe that people won’t be very interested in FF7 material if they don’t give him enough screen time, plaster his face on enough material, and have One-Winged Angel playing for the billionth time. He’s like some unofficial mascot of FF7 or something. Even then, I still don’t see popularity as an excuse to just suddenly make his presence become obnoxious and in-your-face all the time to the point to where you start to hate him for that reason. It’s just Five Nights at Sephiroth’s now.
Beating a guy many times until you stop feeling threatened by them will result in that guy becoming a joke to you. They would feel like a character from a slapstick cartoon who gets beat up all the time like Tom Cat from Tom & Jerry for example. That’s what Sephiroth in the remakes feels like to me. Someone that has to be taken seriously, he and the writers want you to take him seriously, but you can’t take him all *that* seriously because of how many times you’re kicking his ass because they want to shoehorn his presence and popularity/marketability so much that they can’t allow anyone or anything else to be the final boss of the first two entries of the remakes and just save him to be the final boss in the third and final entry in the remake trilogy. Remake Sephiroth just feels like a mix between a dark and serious character that you need to be scared of and take seriously every time he shows up on screen and a comedic slapstick cartoon character who keeps on getting his ass whupped like Tom Cat or Wile E. Coyote. He’s a joke that needs to be taken seriously or rather, a joke that demands to be taken seriously. It reminds me of the Mario & Luigi vs. Sephiroth memes where Sephiroth is curbstomped by Mario & Luigi (thanks to their cartoon physics) and is viewed as the punchline, the butt of the joke, or the butt-monkey. And I think that’s just sad for a character like him, honestly.
Word
Remake is not "unhelpfully titled". It's UNTENTIONALLY misleading.
It's the biggest, most prolific instance of false marketing.
Intentionally misleading. Absolutely.
Except it wasn't. People just ignored every interview the devs ever gave going back as far as 2015, and even what was said in the initial trailer itself. People fooled themselves into what they wanted...not what the devs were saying all along.
@@Dayv018 Absolutely not true. This is a legit lie on your part. Every single trailer had purposefully chosen scenes that never revealed the true nature of the game and only baited people's nostalgia.
And even if in dev interviews, there were indications (which there weren't), it's not a job of the customer to watch dev interviews. It's Square's job be have honest marketing.
@ravador Agreed. Personally, I try to avoid spoilers as much as possible. What little I did hear was that they were changing the combat system, breaking the game into multiple volumes, and that they were going to stay true to the story. Almost all of the promotional material and packaging was deceptive, and most of what was shown focused on scenes that were recreated from the original game. You know, nastolgia bait.
If they had said, "Follow Cloud and friends as they embark on a new, fantastical adventure where they rekindle their friendships and fight the physical manifestation of Fate itself!" Most OG fans would've been like, "Nah, I'm good."
@@thromegaawesome I mean, shit, why do you think it was named "Remake". Nomura would like yout o believe it's a clever pun, but it's obviously a disengenious marketing strategy.
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.
"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."
I know exactly how you feel. I'm sorry you've had to go through this same as I. What you're describing is exactly how I felt after beating Remake (part 1) - the time-travel/multiverse stuff killed the emotional weight of the story for me, and the "will/won't the developers change [X]?" meta-nature of the trilogy makes it impossible for me to suspend disbelief/remain immersed. After beating Remake, I swore that I would wait until Rebirth came out and I could read up on all the spoilers BEFORE I decided whether it was worth playing or not. Ultimately, the direction they've taken this trilogy is so antithetical to what I love about FFVII that I decided not to get Rebirth and Part 3.
I discussed this issue (from a storytelling perspective) at length in a video I uploaded to my channel back in February (a month before Rebirth released). Some parts of it are a little bit dated, but I've seen an influx of viewers lately and many commenters have said that it helped them to understand and cope with the issues they have with Remake AND Rebirth. Granted, it's a VERY long video, but feel free to check it out if you have the time.
Also, if it's any consolation, I've recently been playing the OG with mods installed (e.g., Ninostyle character models, enhanced backgrounds, ReMusic, New Threat 2.0, new sound FX, etc.). It's really damn good, and the modders are still finding new ways to make it better. It has helped me with overcoming my grief.
Remember that sales are half of remake and popular review sites won't give anything new less than 8/10
“I was feeling so disconnected from the general fanbase” Oh jeez, I relate to that sentiment. I’m disconnected from the general fanbase but I tend to feel like that towards most fanbases even if they revolve around my favorite franchises. I’m not very social and don’t fit in well, so I’m not confident that I’ll have many good interactions nor be good in discussions.
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.
Youre so good at explaining the issues with this game
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.
No it didn't the og game didn't get gritty until after Aerith dies and the world starts to end which is literally what happens in rebirth.
@@kei7540 Do you remember returning to Nibelheim in the original. It was overcast and gloomy. The towns People were very hesitant to even talk to you. They would gaslight you into thinking the town never even burned down. Now when you return it’s almost like they’re welcoming you to their town. The atmosphere was way off with the sun shining and being able to play Queens blood with shinra soldiers!?
@@endlessmitch9663 so? They change to be a rehab center and I mean we get other scenes like cloud getting hauntings of past and saying the same lines a sephiroth in the flashback and the roche fight reminding him that he could lose himself even further to the degradation
Agreed.even the chapter where tifa and aerith almost got trafficked off, people are just having a blast. Like they're on vacation there. And it's just one big gag.
Man thats what you told yourself to feel edgy. Same reason you probably tell yourself the OG wasnt anime. The PSX games abstract presentation really helps with this. It allows people to just project their tastes onto it.
I cant believe a supposed OG fan would dare call Costa del Sol, GS and Gongaga gritty though 😂
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.
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.
This is the best explanation for all the confusion going on, and I hope to all goodness that it's what the developers are actually going for. Because it could very well go either way
I appreciate those last two lines XD. Play on words ftw
That’s a double edged sword, if the goal was to make us feel like cloud they nailed it, because I am clueless and idk what the fck is going on lol
The developers are not as smart as you think they are; these are the same people that wrote Kingdom Hearts, Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus...
@@Maverick.D. what’s wrong with crisis core, how dare you include crisis core with dirge and KH. Absolute disgrace. Disgusting.
I really appreciated your thoughts and a lot of your observations hit that "you may have not noticed it, but your brain did" level.
Your review is unique here because you really only covered your feedback on the plot. I wonder how your experience of the gameplay impacted how you feel about this story? Based on your hour count, sounds like you did spend time on the in between content. Basically, I did map completions and side quests before leaving each region, trying to do as much as possible before starting story quests. So there was time in-between these story beats for me to reflect on one hand, and to ignore on the other.
Particularly because that time was mired in ADHD levels if choredom and boredom. Coupled with these painful new character beats and plots, and I was left with boredom and spikes of frustration from every new plot point.
When I read posts of those criticisms of the myriad of painful and obtuse minigames or painful expedition, the fan response always boils down to "sorry for too much game" or "why don't you skip that stuff til after the story". That response kills me. Under the hood, I thought I was playing an RPG. I want to role play, experience these areas and their people and parts of the story. I should have known though that wasn't the method it was trying to story tell...
Immediately, you can't carry your Remake save over. I was shocked, all that investment, I played Remake with long haul intent and now every weapon, summon, materia was somehow gone. I thought like Golden Sun, I was playing a story across games. Instead, I was watching one.
My second story concern was when walking around Kalm, NPCs would shout statements to themselves, to one another as I walked past. The screen filling with dialog thanks to closed captions. I don't think I learned a single thing about the world from its inhabitants. Every area was not a town to explore, but a set piece to task through.
Mai the ai screaming unhearable facts through my remote about a beastary I wanted to love, but barely even got to know. When shes done, she'll keep making noise, singing and talking about the fight.
My point is, this is a game that you can watch the main story through youtube and be just as invested as you are with a controller in your hands. The world doesn't do anything to move the story along.
For all the flak Remake got for being "too linear", the games arcade rolodex tricked us into thinking that problem was solved. Its not. The parts of the game that move the plot are on rails. The developers forgot that there are so many tools to tell a story. Throwing a box at a chicken to lure them home wasn't one of them.
That is how fans can say to you "skip past those minigames, dont burn yourself out, but go back in your beat game and complete stuff later". Because like so much media now, its not an experience anymore. It's just content.
That lack of an emersive world trickles right through your points. We have 80 hours of content here, but we can't give the og content the time it needs to be new. Cloud has to wig out every scene since Remake. Hey, we already know Nippleheim is a facade, so move along quickly up that hill. Dyne just became a junk yard robot, keep that momentum going by having him do what Zack doesn't do this time. Pew pew.
Sure, the OG is ported to every device out there. These remakes though are an opportunity to introduce new people to beloved stories though, and to rob people of all those incredible feelings you touched on makes me question if stories like the og could even be told now. Not when it could be split into 3 parts for that sweet paycheck instead of one remake for an experience.
Ultimately, thats what this game lost. Over 100 hours of content. I experienced very little substance. I don't feel a single damn thing.
I leave this long post with one last thought. Thinking of FFXVs incompleteness, I imagine the investment was so high for this game that despite being top 5 in 2024 sells, there is a real risk to there not being a 3rd and final game. Like Hollywood blockbusters, you better make 3x your spend or you are finished. I wonder if the ambiguous, could go anywhere because it went no where ending recognizes this risk? So it can be resolved by any number of silly sequels, books, animes, etc that take it conflicting and different directions. My point being that no matter what happens next, they are set up to never give a satisfying story again. Set up that way by design.
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.
I haven't played rebirth (or any version of FF7 honestly) so I could be wrong but to be me it feels like a major issue is the producer Tetsuya Nomura. He's big on intrigue, curve balls, style, and the rule of cool. There's nothing wrong with those elements, but if you don't have people to focus that kind of storytelling it can make something look good or feel exciting in the moment, but doesn't always have staying power. He kinda reminds me of Steven Moffat; interesting ideas but needs others to channel those ideas
He's the one who tried to stay faithful to the OG! Nojima is the one changing Stuff.
I keep telling people. This reimagining is being rewritten purely to make people talk about it. That’s proof this project has already failed
WHAT have I been saying ever since they started tinkering with the original's story way back in Remake???
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.
at the very least, ff8 can shamelessly wear its convoluted writing like an unapologetic badge of honor. the ff7 remake feels like it's ashamed of itself because the writers are realising how much they're complicating a relatively straightforward story (that has basically already been written for them). they're in between completely changing the plot of the game and keeping it as true to the original at the same time, and somehow, they keep choosing the wrong option.
Every terrible decision made in this 'trilogy' stem from the decision to release three games.
@@starbites1984 FF8 can wear it proudly because it was designed from the ground up to be that thing. With Remake they basically took themes and story bits that had nothing to do with the original and grafted them to the narrative... and I guess assumed no one would complain (when calling it Remake) or that it would somehow work out? I don't know, this whole FF7 remake project is bafflingly stupid and mismanaged.
I think "nobody is looking forward to part 3" is a bit of a reach, from what I've seen I'd give it a 50/50 split spanning both and new players and OGs
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.
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.
They could've just made a remaster with the new combat system and call it a day tbh.
The second saddest death in FF7 is Aerith's. The saddest death is when Testuya Nomura smothered FF7 Remake in its crib to replace it with Kingdom Fantasy 7 Hearts: Reimagined/364 days.
I'm just waiting for Mickey Mouse to show up in Part 3
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
FFVII Rebirth is garbage writing, funny how three dudes written the concept to this sfest trilogy and would you youtubers please stop making excuses.
Square milking the franchise, why would they call it a new journey begins, when it is just filler content following a outdated narrative to og, why even create chapter 18 in remake, just to follow original story narrative, it's a game full of filler rubbish and a sequel, what the FVII fan base don't actually realise is they set the franchise up now as a eternal conflict between Sephiroth and Aerith, where ever Aerith exist, Sephiroth will hunt her down, this is marketing to continue milking a franchise long outdated without a actual ending.
The writing is a really mixed bag. I feel like there is something good buried under mounds of directorial dung. Rufus giving Avalache a pass for their mutual benefit was a nice touch for example. Stuff to do with Barret and Yuffie, both of whom have legitimate axes to grind with Shinra, tend to be good scenes (specifically thinking of Barret telling the story of Corel and Yuffie's reaction to it). As much as I hate them showing Sephiroth all the time, casting doubt about Tifa is quite effective. But on the other hand you've got the cringe of the Gold Saucer, Hojo's machine vs the Johnny army, Red 13's baby boy voice and attitude, everything else in Junon that isn't Rufus letting Avalanche go. It's a real shame.
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.
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.
The first one was just bad....Rebirth absolutely stank to high heaven
The FF franchise lost it's way, trying to make action games and ending up mediocre. And this Remake nonsense is nothing but a shameless cash grab milking the FF7 fanbois for all they're worth.
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 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.
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.
Being open minded or open to interpretation is what's good for any piece of media. It was with the original FFVII and it is now with the Remake project. However, I have do disagree with most of the video. There are MANY counterpoints I wanted to touch on, but I don't know a wall of text is what is needed.
One point I've haven't seen being touch upon yet by anyone and was touched upon in the video with negative connotations, for some reason, is the relationships the party have between themselves WITHOUT Cloud. That's why the Aerith and Tifa's friendship was so good, why I immediately called that Tifa would be a mess by the end of the game just after the Kalm sequence (why is this friendship relegated as a ship is beyond me). That's why Barret, Nanaki and Yuffie's buddying relationship is great. In the original game, sans Tifa and Barret because you already meet him knowing her already and their stablished back story, all characters interact with each other only with Cloud present as the party leader except, and only except, when Cloud is missing and the party leader is either Tifa or Cid,. That is a limitation on the storytelling imposed by the platform and genre itself (i.e., a text-based JRPG with only FMV cutscenes). Having the characters actually feel like characters in Rebirth and not be dependant on Cloud being there for them to talk and grow as people is a plus, but gets no mention whatsoever.
And many points brought on the video, like Barret's sudden quote-unquote "change of personality" or Tifa's "violence bad" arc can be traced back to Remake. Remember, even if Shinra's guilty of everything, Barret STILL feels guilt and/or responsability for his actions during Midgar that ultimately led to the destruction of Sector 7. During the Bombing Mission, in the original game and in Remake, Barret had a "shoot first, ask later" attitude, the ends-justify-the-means kind, not caring for collateral damage. But after Jessie, Wedge and Biggs, and the fall of Sector 7, Barret had experienced once a again the loss of his living place by Shinra after something he did may or may not have had an influence on what happened. I'm not saying it's Barret's fault, but either way Barret feels guilt and remorse. And that feeling is what leads to his change of attitude, even in Remake when he could have chose not to save the Shinra President and let him fall to his death, but instead he was able to see the bigger picture and saves him to try to persuade him into going full-transparent to the public on Shinra's involvment about the Reactor explosions and Sector 7. With Rufus, in the original game Barret wanted to kill him aboard the Shinra-8 but that's odd even for him because Rufus isn't responsible for what happened in Midgar, his father was but he is already dead and killing Rufus would do nothing for Barret. Also, the line Barret says in Rebirth about how Yuffie's assassination attempt saved them from the deal was on point, since he was reflecting on his own actions during North Corel and the construction of the Reactor.
And with Tifa, in Remake when she and Cloud had to follow Johnny who was being detained and interrogated by Shinra Troopers during Chapter 3 and they had to deal with the Troopers, Tifa explicitly said Cloud he was scaring her after implying about killing the Troopers after the battle.
Oh no, I started to write a wall of text.
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! :)
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.
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
Shinra was somewhat redeemed in the original game too
the remakes' writing and scene direction feel very "corporate" to me, as in the dialogue is all written for any average person to enjoy with all the nuance removed. it also makes a LOT of scenes that i should find funny cringe. ff7 isnt a super overly-serious game but there isn't a single scene in the remakes where any character talks like a normal person imo. it feels like they're trying way too hard with everything and have to go over the top and shove any nuances of the original in your face. i don't get any of those same feelings playing the original ff7, ff14, or even ff16 which came out half a year earlier. i cant speak on most of the other modern ff titles as 14 and 16 are the only newer ones i've played, but i bet those games would be way less successful if they had a timeline-multiverse ghost plot shoved into their stories
I'm playing this with Japanese dub, English sub. I know some Japanese but I'm not fluent so subs are my safety net. The stuff in the English dialogue is vastly more cringe than the Japanese most the time. The English seems to be a lot of that typical western millennial writing that tries to be cute and edgy at the same time, whereas the Japanese is often more understated. With that said, there is still a lot of really bad stuff that makes my skin crawl regardless of language eg when you get to the Gold Saucer, which feels like they got an AI to write a homoerotic fever dream.
Thank you so much for this video, it really helped me put in perspective exactly why I overall just felt so... weird, and bad after finishing this game. There's small moments that made me smile, or laugh, of course, but overall it all just wraps around and around itself to the point of implosion. I take the biggest issue with how they've been treating Cloud's mental illness and trauma, in that suddenly it's not that at all. I realize they're trying to tell a different story, but there's something that stings about him just normally, suddenly, without any problems at all remembering Zack at this point in the story. This gets even worse when they fight together at the end like it's nothing, and not an event that feels like it should be a complete mental break for him. His memory loss and triggers, basically any time that Cloud acts weird, are suddenly credited to "degeneration", a concept I believe they're trying to tie in from Crisis Core. There's this push, as you stated about other things in the game like Cosmo Canyon, to give a "logical and/or Final Fantasy VII lore tie-in" explanation for everything, even things that really don't need that. Cloud's character loses so much of its punch and relatability when he's not just a person struggling with finding himself after trauma, and instead is just "another doomed SOLDIER" or whatever it is that they're trying to get across.
I'm rambling, but this game just does that to me. It's so hard to talk about because there's so much of it. Wonderful job again on breaking it down even a little bit, with bonus points to your lovely voice and sense of humor! I'll definitely be checking out your other videos soon! :)
This is the best breakdown of this game I have ever seen
Nailed it. I also got the feeling that SE is afraid to chose, so they just do everything to satisfy everyone, which doesn't work. There is one theory for the ending I think I can live with - and that is Clouds mind building up this illusion of Aeris being alive so he doesn't break down, maybe even Jenova doing stuff (we do hear a creepy music when we see her alive when she should have died). But the obsession with Aeris in the game was a bit disgusting. Am I the only one who thinks it's totally OOC and not logic to perform a self-written song in the Golden Saucer theater?
I just watched the ending of Crisis Core, I really miss the simple and effective writing of the last scene. All those riddles, confusion and mysterious lines especially Sephiroth says in Remake & Rebirth are not good storywriting. Did the ending of Remake have any effect to Rebirth? I still don't understand why the party has to fight against Sephiroth again and again and ... again, when he actually has no interest in killing Cloud.
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
I'm not gonna lie: This whole video kinda just felt like mindless complaining. I agree that the ending makes no sense and the multiverse concept is both boring and confusing. But you basically spent an hour complaining that the game isn't a beat for beat recreation of the original. I hate to break it to you, but if you didn't realize that this was a different game after Remake, you alone are responsible for your disappointment. And a lot of your criticisms don't even make sense. For example, it sounded more like you were angered by Tifa's "Fanservice" (Something that is both irrelevant and optional) than any of the storybeats. At no point in this story did I feel like Tifa's character didn't make sense or was annoying/unlikable. It's also 110% clear that Tifa is NOT a Jenova clone, IDK where on earth you got that from. Cloud ADMITS multiple times that Tifa DOES have a scar, proving she IS real. The only reason he attacks her in Gongaga is because Sephiroth convinces him that her having a scar doesn't matter since "Jenova can take any form". Hell, I actually prefer this Tifa and this Barrett to the original versions. I also wasn't bothered AT ALL by Red 13's VA, nor by the changes to Sid. Frankly, all of the complaints that YOU listed about the characters felt less like valid criticism and more like blind fanboying that everything isn't exactly the same. I got the impression that unless this game was a turn-by-turn platformer that had the EXACT same story as the original, you weren't going to like it. And that is FINE! Just say that though and move on. But don't patronize us by acting like the new game is some kind of disgusting perversion.
I'm not going to lie, it seems like you didn't even listen to the video and decided it was mindless complaining, so to be fair, I'm going to decide that your comment is mindless complaining.
He used specific examples of the OG game to illustrate the tension that allowed players to relate and care about the cast.
I never played OG7 before and after uninstalling Remake, it has left a sour taste in my mouth. The pacing is all over the place (which makes sense when you stretch a tutorial section over 5 hours). I simply couldn't give two sh××s about the characters or environmentalist/terrorist/corporate analogies.
A lot of your complaints here don't make sense. For example, it sounds like you're more angry at the fact that the person criticizing is able to pinpoint and specify what they dislike.
@@GreyException I did listen to the mindless droning of this video. And no, he wasn’t able to pinpoint issues, he spent the vast majority of the video going “This wasn't in the original, therefore i hate it." Even when stuff is expanded on, it's met with complaining and whining. Rebirth is a GOOD game, a good game that is utterly ruined by the ending and by an insistence on using a multiverse where none belongs. Is it different from the original? Yes. Do I care? No. Should ANYONE care about it being different? Absolutely Not. Grow up and get over it
@@kylewilson2819 if you concluded that his specifications about tension in the OG vs lack of tension in the Remake is "it's not the same therefore I hate it" you didn't listen. You simply chose to put words in their mouth because it's easier to tear down.
Listen to yourself. You think others should "not care, grow up and get over it" yet here you are, caring about other peoples opinions enough to tell them they shouldn't have them, unable to get over it.
Yep the criticism towards tifa doesnt make sense in a single bit. Tifa in the og ff7 was even worse. She knw there's something wrong abt cloud and his nibleheim story, but she nvr ever confronted him. I feel like many of the criticism are simply because they're different. He doesnt care if that difference is there to fix the plot hole from OG FF7.
FF7 is a dark game, and I think SE doesn't want to recreate that as they're trying to be Japan's Disney.
Nintendo said it’s too late for that
Vincent was always intended to have a bigger story in the og but was cut due to disc space & the main story/characters focus. Same as Yuffie. So we got stuck with them as side characters & very little backstory. Dirge of Cerberus helped flush his story out somewhat but meh game
YES 👏 Finally, some criticism on the cutscenes, even just a little. The camera cannot, will not, linger on a shot. The dollie’s have to move so much, the editing was giving me anxiety and I just felt tired watching a 1 minute scene feel like 5 minutes
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!
I feel like I did a lot of work in trying to separate which parts of my dissatisfaction was my being annoyed about small stakes changes and which feels more like deeper concerns with the remake's vision, but I hope you find the video interesting! Sorry you had to see the comments and have, on some level, got wrapped up in this lol
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?
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..
They changed his entire character and the tragedy of who he was. In the original he even hinting at killing Marlene. He was an entirely different person in the original. Not to say originals are always better but in this case his og character was more thought provoking, more tragic and less generic.
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 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.
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.
Rebirth is what it’s like to get your favorite book turned into a movie. It gets mangled by the Hollywood machine into something easy to digest for the average consumer and strips it of what made it so special in the first place. Gone is the nuance. Gone is the commitment. Why actually commit to an idea that might upset people? It’s all about the “sUbVeRtInG eXpEcTaTiOnS” bullshit that writers cling to for dear life because it generates discussion and clips on CZcams. You can subvert expectations well. Hell, Aerith’s death in the original game is a perfect example of that. But, these modern cash grabs don’t do it for the purpose of a compelling narrative. It’s all about controversy, views, top 10 theories about what will happen next videos on CZcams. Final Fantasy VII is 27 years old and people still talk about Aerith’s death to this day. They made a reference to it in fucking Wreck It Ralph for crying out loud. Does anybody really think people will be talking about this multiverse hogwash 27 years from now?
Tl;dr - The book is always better than the movie and the Original FF7 will always, ALWAYS be better than the Remake.
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).
Only 3hrs into remake... So everything you said was completely meaningless. What are you even doing?
@@Mutation80 having lots of cool sex and making millions of dollars
You can’t really criticize a game with only 3 hours…
@@lulu_TheWitchBoy i've watched three full playthroughs of remake before i ever got a chance to play it on pc. even after knowing i didn't like the story i still gave it a chance. that's when i bounced off it
"A complete misunderstanding of what the games about" Oh yes, please tell me more about what the games about random person on the internet with 3 hours of game time, as opposed to the LITERAL CREATORS of the original. The arrogance of people is truly astouding sometimes.
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.
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 just recently caught up to rebirth. I enjoy some of the changes they've made but there are so new many choices made that leave such a bad taste in my mouth, it's hard to swallow.
Your sentiments outline mine almost exactly. Barret is done so dirty, Tifa is done so dirty, Cait Sith is done so squeaky clean (which is a dirty move).
The ending it's hard to find any emotional resonance to because they break up the emotional climax with a 2 hour long boss rush with more phases than ever spread out across multiple dimensions, bring her back, kill her again, bring her back, kill her again... In the fight wih regular -ass sephiroth he uses the killing skewer on cloud zach and aerith so many times it's a wonder he's ever actually finished anyone off with that sword before. The bombastic action is so wrong. Characters are doing witty quips like it's a marvel movie while their friend just die like, moments ago (or hours ago depending on how time is moving who can say)
I was explaining to my spouse about how the question leading into this game was will they save Aerith this time, and should they? And for the answer to be a resounding "yes, but actually no, but also maybe" feels so flat. Like sure ambiguity means they can pay off the answer later but like... This was the part of the story where that needed to be decided! They had a luxurious 120 hours to tell this story so far and said "alright tune in next time!!"
Then i had to explain some weird dimension hopping stuff going on leading to the ambiguity of the ending and i could see my spouse's soul leave thier body.
I don't really agree with most of what you said, I think the majority of the game is great. But the stuff with Tifa and party not questioning Cloud's outrageous mental health issues is a sticking point for me, and I definitely agree the ending is a complete train wreck.
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 ☹️
It's less canonization, and more cohesion. The goal is to make the entire compilation feel more cohesive, and less like a progression in the storytelling.
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
I loved everything about the game, and can’t wait for part 3.
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.
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.
I loved the original ending because the its open ended nature leaves it open for all sorts of interpretations, I always interpreted it as the adults who corrupted the planet dying but the children living on as they are representation of the future and our chance at saving our planet from the previous generations mistakes
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.
The Doctor might have been talking about Reeves, whoever it was, he has a point. Not everyone working at Shinra is wicked.
Against my better judgement based on the title, I clicked on this video. There are a lot of needlessly vile takedown pieces coming out about Rebirth, and I expected something with this title to be exactly that. But I clicked on it anyway for reasons I don't understand (I do seek out opinions that disagree with my own to see why others feel the way they do, but generally not ones that use such hyperbolic and caustic language so readily). And to my surprise this video ISN'T just a hostile, thoughtless rant about how the game is 'overrated', that proceeds to fill itself with vapid nitpicks. There are valid thoughts here, and there are valid criticisms. Some of which I even agree with.
That being said, I had to stop around halfway through, because I unfortunately have to admit that it feels like you're drowning those valid criticisms in "I know I'm overreacting, but..." every... single... step of the way. I get that it's a bit; it's part of your writing schtick. And doing it one or two times per video this length, would be okay. But you do it so often that at a certain point, I can't tell what you're presenting as a fair criticism, and what is simply you venting about your personal gripes in a way you acknowledge may not be fair. I don't know if you're using this as a shield? I absolutely understand as a """video essay games critic content creator""" myself, that people can be... really dang toxic. And so sometimes you feel like you have to try and shield yourself from some of it. But either way, it's taken too far for me here. If I'm being expected to take your thoughts here seriously, I have to be able to differentiate between what you really want to share with me as an audience member, and the chaotic, ranty interjections that you acknowledge are purely born from your own personal tastes.
It's especially frustrating because we seem to have a fair amount in common. You have a video talking about Spoony's negative effect on media criticism, which I'm just about to watch because my god I at very least agree with that core sentiment, lol. And right at the start of that video you say you love FFXIII, as do I. You also mentioned in this video that you had issues with how CC handles Zack's relationship with Shinra, which - as someone who feels Crisis Core is one of the worst stories I've ever experienced in any bigger budget narrative, in any medium - I'm picking up what you're putting down. But similar to Spoony ironically enough, the aforementioned lack of clarity between the topics you actually want to explore and your own personal overreactions to Rebirth kind of end up like... for lack of a better term... a fence sitting 'mask'.
One of the major problems I have with Spoony (other than his obsession with just pointing random nitpicks out and then CinemaSins-ing them), is that he hides behind the mask of comedy. Intermingling comedy and criticism can be great. But they still need to be separated enough, for the sake of clarity and honesty. With Spoony and his fanbase though, when it's beneficial to their argument, everything he says is "legitimate criticism". But when it's not, suddenly it's "just a joke that you're taking too seriously". It sits in this intentionally vague limbo aimed at having his cake and eating it too, to deflect criticism of his usually awful critique. This video kind of (unintentionally, I think) feels the same way, to a lesser extent. When you're constantly deflecting to "I'm overreacting here.", it feels like I'm being gaslit in a way, whether I take your points seriously or not. And it even at points leads to you effectively saying "This is absolutely me just taking things too far.", and then... not giving any real reasoning or more 'legitimate' point after that. As if you forgot what you were meaning to explore beyond the initial rant. But at the same time it feels like I'm still expected to take your rant seriously? I dunno. It's just very confusing.
I hope this doesn't come off as mean, or preachy. My ultimate point here is that I WANTED to enjoy this video more than I actually was, and that I feel like you have the skill to avoid undercutting your own ideas like this. I don't think you need to act like I shouldn't take them seriously, and fill them with suddenly hostile language. By all means, share your thoughts that you feel are less fair to the game, and also share your more grounded points. I just think this video is in desperate need of clarity, because stumbling around as if "maybe I'm just being an asshole, or maybe I'm not; I dunno", really just led to me being frustrated and confused more than anything else. It's obviously possible that this isn't indicative of your style as a whole. Either way, I'm excited to try the Spoony video right after this comment is posted, and then see if I can find the one you referenced about Zack.
Okay I don't understand how Barret teling everyone else not to trust Shinra no matter who's in charge goes against his principles. The guy who's constantly going on about how Shinra is terrible and not trustworthy doing the same thing on the ship somehow goes against his principles? That makes no sense to me, then when you tried to support that point by going into the Dyne scene, at least I think that's what you wanted to do because it did NOT work, only to show a negative bias towards the scene (which is fine) but also might've not quite understood it maybe?
The original Dyne scene is vastly superior, don't get me wrong, but it's pretty clear in the Remake that Dyne wanted Barret to keep living with the ONE thing he hates him for, that he won't just give him an easy escape while he himself clearly can't handle his own baggage, he just doesn't wanna admit it like the douchebag he is
13:44 Me and my brother had a laugh about his voice change! Saying he sounded like a 2000s kids movie protag XD
My issue with Red XIII isn’t that his voice changed to sound younger, it’s the voice actor who sounds weird and bad.
Its the same voice actor who does both voices though...i assume the direction he got was exactly to sound like this, to punch home the fact he still was a child/teenager
@@Drakan86 you sure?
@@catwhobarks Yeah its definitely Max...i was amazed how he was able to do Reds deep voice in Remake, cause he sounds nothing like that in real life
czcams.com/video/CjzstM0WZiM/video.htmlsi=MYFcGFILyMWEO9FK
Yeah. Given from what I have heard of the VA I'd say it was likely more an issue with directions and not him being a bad voice actor.
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
dude he'll probably be playable in Part 3, chill lol
@@eldritchbidoof yeah thats why I’m just gonna wait for that one to come out 😂
20:35 I know I've been leaving a lot of comments lol, but why did they need to change the Gi? The idea of them becoming too bitter to enter the lifesteam worked better than this. It served as a lesson to Nanaki that he couldn't become that way over his father. And why are they aliens now??? What does that add???
It’s awful modern storytelling. Everything has to be linked and also have a backstory.
I disagree. The old Gi were just forgettable angry spirit things. This actually gave them some significance to the Planet, as well as tap into the subtle galaxy-level plot of Jenova, the Planet, Cetra, and Humans. Nothing was really lost, it was only improved imo.
Some things being forgettable is needed though otherwise everything is linked to main plot thread and it becomes an absolute mess.
Not only was it not needed but it creates a plot hole. In the og the Gl were a rival tribe that tried to sneak into Cosmo canyon through the back door in a pincer attack, which is why red thought seto ran away. If the GI actually "lives" there then seto running in there could in no way misunderstood as fleeing but charging into enemy territory with no possible exit. They also now have to hand wave the fact that the Gl have an unexplained way to get past the seal but attacked Cosmo canyon instead of thier new motive of looking for the black materia, the reason they wanted out in the first place.
The only thing this solves is why the Gl became undead instead of joining the life stream in the original, but was something that this explains, there are other undead in the setting are we to assume they are aliens too?
@@Ideataster Forgettable to you, but I remembered them just fine lol
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.
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.
excellent video queen, you nailed it. masterful gambit
Why does Aeris say that the black materia is "not the real black materia"?
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.
Why is his voice trembling so much?
Because well yea 😂
Out of the three FF7 remake installments, the only one I enjoyed funnily enough was Intermission (Yuffie’s story) Unfortunately they changed who she was a bit, considering all of the character growth she experienced in that dlc, they simplified her and took away some of her integrity and meaningfulness.
She just became a bit of a clown and kissed up to the party. Yuffie from intermission had guts and panache. She wouldn’t have begged Cloud to take her. Even beyond that, she was forced into the court jester role. She had a lot of emotion and maturity under that 16 yearold exterior atleast in the sense that she had character and self worth. It’s ok if a character is written without self worth, but in intermission’s case she was silly and goofy and it was easy to write her off but every now and then she had really great moments where she would exceed expectations.
It was a short story but I think better told than Rebirth and Remake which were just clear victims of corporatized for profit bureaucracy.
The constant meddling of the PC police, the “will this reach more audiences” authorities and the “will this sell the next game” dictators. The constant story threads all eventually fizzling out to nothing rewarding or conclusive. A giant cock tease leading to the one moment that could earn it some respect - to follow through with Aeriths death but of course not. No guts, no glory - the best example of the definition. It’s almost as if they didn’t want to hurt anyones feelings by killing her in the most diplomatic way possible but no, it’s worse than that. They actually did want to have their cake and eat it too, but at the expense of you the audience experiencing any glimpse of drama or tragedy. As if your heart and mind were bred by corporations your entire lives.. oh wait. That’s probably true and thats why Monday meeting board room data analysis showed them they should make the safest most generic, and soggy death scene possible.
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.👍
That video was straight up art
This was a well put together essay, and while I don’t hold exactly the same opinions as you, I do agree with your overall message about this game being cowardly. I got into “Final Fantasy VII” partially because I was extremely intrigued by the possibilities that “Remake” seemed to set up: that fate can be changed and that characters don’t have to be bound by the roles that have been pre-determined for them. So playing “Rebirth” and finding out that no, Cloud, Aerith, and Sephiroth are all glued to their roles tighter than ever, and the only difference being Aerith and Sephiroth are now using Cloud as a Pawn/Queen/King-hybrid in their cosmic multiverse game of 4D Chess, was disappointing to say the least.
To me, “Rebirth” didn’t feel rancid: it felt hollow. There were so many things going on in this game, and yet at the same time, I don’t feel as emotionally satisfied as I should, to say nothing of how the narrative feels like something is fundamentally missing something. As you pointed out in building up new intrigue and mysteries, the game forgot to consider what it’s core message is and what it wants to say, other than “Tune in next time, where we’ll answer all the questions, promise! 😜”
Also, loved your discussion of Tifa, her scar, and the softening of Shinra. I honestly have no idea what they’re trying to do with Tifa’s story arc this time around, and in a way I think it’s interesting that Tifa seems to have a lot of doubts about Cloud at the end of “Rebirth” to the point it may impact how Cloud finds himself again. But at the same time, I doubt they will actually take that risk, since “Rebirth”, as Jackson Tyler pointed out in an episode of “Abnormal Mapping”, has a habit of *seeming* like it’ll do something interesting but doesn’t actually do anything. Also, seeing her constantly objectified in ways that are honestly more insidious than any jiggle physics from the original game’s cutscenes, especially when a major part of her character now is her physical trauma on top of her emotional & psychological traumas, is rather gross.
Also, love how the game tries to de-claw Shinra and put all the blame for the evil stuff solely on Sephiroth…even when the planet dying, Sephiroth’s very existence and his plans to destroy the world are all direct or indirect results of Shinra’s cruelty and callousness in their reckless pursuit of profits. (To say nothing of the ongoing SOLDIER degradation plot, war crimes against Wutai, massive class divide across the world, and their inhuman treatment of living beings period).
All of this to say, I *wanted* to like this game more than I do, there are still things that I genuinely love about it, but as you pointed out this game’s cowardice and wishy-washy approach to storytelling really hold it back. Even if the third game turns out to go back to subverting expectations and telling a compelling story, it won’t change the fact that they wasted a *lot* of time on this one, and refused to fully take the plunge to say something interesting.
Also, glad to see another Roche lover, he was, and still is, one the best parts of the trilogy project. I’m not looking forward to whatever he will be subjected to in the final game. 😢
The game flies perilously close at times to justifying itself through Roche alone tbh. If only, if only
The game is not cowardly at all. It changes the whole narrative and plot points of the OG which is a bold and brave thing for the creators to do. It would have been more cowardly to play it safe and just do a 1:1 version of the game.
@@andrewjmp3494yes and no. I love this game and am still enjoying playing it, but one of the things I’ve noticed most and said to others is that it really shies away from uncomfortable topics or visceral violence.
In the original there is nothing heroic about Dynes death. He is a man deeply troubled by what he has done, and decides to kill himself. There’s no heroic charge to kill Shinra troops and protect his former friend. He commits suicide. It’s visceral, uncomfortable and profound. It has time to breathe.
In rebirth, you’re immediately confronted by Palmer as the main party because of the scenario they’ve set up. This could have worked if they let Barrett and Dyne play out their drama and have him return and confront Palmer physically elsewhere in the game. Or, let it cut to the party literally anywhere else dealing with the Turks and Palmer. Creating that physical distance between these events allows the story beat between Dyne and Barrett breathe more.
The same is true with anyone being murdered with a sword. Jump cuts away from the physical act of someone being murdered. The OG literally makes you watch sephiroth slide his sword into Aerith. It’s an act of very intimate violence, that punctuates the moment of her death.
It’s fine if they want to go in a different direction with the story, but robbing these moments of their poignancy in service of that vision is what I personally have an issue with.
I say this with a lot of love for the franchise and rebirth specifically, but I feel like they can be so much more bold with these story beats.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING THIS MAN!!! Through all the gaslighting spread by people who seem strangely hurt by any sort of negative critique or anything of the game, you have touched on exactly what made this game so bitterly disappointing, and honestly quite disgusting, to me. It's like you've read my thoughts. The tone of this game is... 🤢, especially considering the original's beautiful dance with grounded poignancy (which is what made me love it so much). It is truly a Disney'ificiation, a massively sensationalist piece of media, designed to shy away from any sort of near troubling themes or questions - it doesn't want you to truly ponder on itself.
The comment section is truly an absolute calamity, so I hope this reaches you man! Again, thank you!
Thank you so much!