Topic: FFVII Remake Ending Discussion (Obvious Spoilers)

**LAST WARNING - THIS THREAD WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS RELATING TO THE END OF THE FFVII REMAKE. IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO HEAR ANYTHING RELATING TO THIS PLEASE CLOSE THIS THREAD**
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Ok, so...

Now we've got that out of the way, i've noticed there isn't a thread yet up for the discussion on the controversial ending that was unleashed in the final chapter of the brand new FFVII remake storyline.

For the record, my personal take is this is an interesting turn of events, and classic Nomura standard if the Kingdom Hearts games are anything to go by. A lot of people don't realize, or don't remember that Nomura was part of the original FFVII team, but only as the character designer, and was not involved in the critical story of the original, but was in the remake.

There is a lot to digest within the last chapter or so, with the remainder of the game not heavily deviating from the source material, but the last chapter, chapter 18 having all hell break loose, and a variety of speculative outcomes that will lead us into the next episode without a 100% clear picture of what exactly is going on.

I will outlay below my thoughts on some of the major plot points that I think Nomura was pointing out in the final chapter, and my opinions on these and how I think they were intended to be intepreted by the player.

The Arbiters Of Fate Bosses

From what i could see, each of these bosses represented the characters. One had a sword, another a gun, and the last used their fist. Funnily enough there was not a 4th one representing Aerith, not sure if this was intentional, or that Aeriths death predetermines the arbiters right to maintain the status quo timeline of the original story.

The huge Zack Fair Deviation

So, this is probably one of the most confusing parts of the finale, and the only one I'm not entirely sure of myself, as the rest of the game, whilst having the whispers and interesting deviation in regards to facing off against the arbiters of fate and Sephiroth, as well as various small deviations that corrected themselves throughout the story (Barrett geting killed / Hojo being dragged away when trying to inform Cloud about his origins etc) the story arc still remains fairly intact, even with these changes, with the exception of one thing, the Zack Fair part.

So, from what i can deduce, in the original storyline of Crisis Core, Zack returns to Midgar along with Cloud, to go back to see Aerith, after escaping from their 4 year incarceration of being injected with Jenova cells. At the end of Crisis Core, Zack faces the Shinra Army, and despite Tseng and Cissneis attempts to get to him first to warn him, he has no option but to go toe to toe with the army. Even as a first class soldier, Zack is no match for the army, and ultimately succumbs to them, in a final word with cloud, and his dying words he hands his buster sword over to Cloud, in the same manner that Angeal did with Zack.

However, in the remake, it shows that Zack has overcome the Shinra Army, and survives, draggin Cloud back to midgar with him, brushing past Aerith who appears to "feel" his presence (This happens whilst the entire team are outside of midgar, post chapter 18 at the end of the game). He is shown to see some sort of phenomena coming from Midgar beforehand (presumably the events unfolding in chapter 18).

This is where it gets very very confusing. So, what I see is that Nomura has split the timeline, into that which is canon, the original arc, and an alternate timeline where fate has been defeated, and therefore a completely different Final Fantasy VII story will now unfold. This surely has to be the only way to make this work, as Zack surviving would not of allowed for Cloud to have the buster sword to begin with throughout the remakes storyline, as Zack appears to witness the changes made by the team in chapter 18 (which is supposedly way after Zack arrives back in midgar) I can only assume this has created some sort of adjustment in the space time, and split off the timeline into another arc (Back to the Future style).

This is further compounded by the ending text of the "The unknown journey will continue". Leading players to conclude that since the journey is unknown, this means it will not remain canon, or it would be known.

I would love to hear peoples opinions on this and whether they agree, disagree, or have other theories relating to the main plot of FFVII remake, and look forward to reading any viewpoints associated with it.

@Grindagger nah Zack always beat the army, he died on the point in the rain after dragging Cloud there, they just skipped that bit in crisis core because it was in the original game as for what happened my best guess is Aerith being an Cetra and being able to commune with the planet and the life stream sensed the events and what we see is what see senses

i think too many people are putting too much stock in this alternate timeline thing, something that has not been said by any of the development team, it a fan theory based on a few lines in a description of a enemy nothing more

the game is a remake and it's going to follow the same basic story of the original Square have already said this before when they first announced it, it's just being shown in a new way that's why it's unknown, the destination is the same it's just the journey is new, Aerith is still gonna die, Sephiroth is still gonna summon Meteor and Midgar is still gonna get destroyed it just how these events happen that might be a bit different

in fact i would say the biggest change is Avalanche and Biggs, Wedge and maybe Jessie still being alive BUT then again we never actually saw them die in the original game either, it was just implied they died when the Sector 7 plate fell

basically i'm saying people are putting too much into this, coming up with theories about timelines and alternate realities just to try and convince themselves that the original game is still a thing and to make it fit with "canon" well guess what IT IS Square have said that the Remake isn't replacing the original it's just a new way to experience the same story

"Nomura: Final Fantasy VII Remake's release does not overwrite the original Final Fantasy VII

FFVII Remake does NOT replace the Original

@FullbringIchigo I fully appreciate that the current status is simply unknown.

Without going into a semantical argument, nothing in that article outright states that the storyline will change, or not change, and in typical Nomura fashion, every sentence he utters is up for various interpretations.

For example: "Nomura says that Final Fantasy VII Remake's release does not overwrite the original Final Fantasy VII. The original is the origin, and VII Remake is only possible because of the original."

&

"director Tetsuya Nomura knows better. In an interview with Famitsu, translated by Frontline Gaming, the director (and character designer of the original Final Fantasy VII) explains that Remake isn't meant to serve as a replacement for the original Final Fantasy VII, but a tribute to it, a brand new way to experience the story and characters of Final Fantasy VII using a brand new suite of technology."

To me this just sounds like the remake is a stand alone title, which could be either a retelling, or a reimagining. It's important that these two subset types of remake are not misunderstood.

Since, at this time, it's impossible to say with any degree of certainty which way it will go, we'll just have to wait and see, but there is certainly, without question, no definitive proof that the story will continue to represent the original in it's definitive conception, no proof, or facts to back up that claim whatsoever.

Interestingly in one of Nomuras quotes above he refers to the remake as a tribute. A tribute can often be evaluated as someone copying something and then doing their own version of it. However, it can also be interpreted as doing something in the faith of the original, but not a direct copy. A good example of this is literally the song "Tribute" by Tenacious D, the song of course being centered around an original song they created that was "the greatest song in the world", but since they forgot it, all they could do was a tribute, which they then go on to state in the song "it didn't actually sound anything like this song!".

Due to this, and unsurprisingly there is definitely a lot of room for fan fiction theories based of the end of FFVII. I don't think people put too much stock in anything when it comes to the complexities of Nomuras handling of storytelling, because he prides himself really on creating work that cannot be definitively pinned down, but only interpreted and theorized over, hence why the game is currently (at least at this point) a very open book, and susceptible to all kinds of potential outcomes.

Ultimately, time will tell, but no matter what comes out, its going to be one hell of a ride.

@Grindagger yeah Nomura does like to keep people guessing doesn't he

A problem with the last chapters is that they make no sense if you have not played the original game. There is this guy Sephiroth taking the bodies of else people and does stuff for some reason. There is some other Zack guy that is facing the army for some reason. You could tell that this will be explained in a second part but they should at least show something about Sephiroth. It is implied that the whole party knows him somehow.

If you see those ghost whisper things when something different happened than what happens in the original game they try to "correct" it. This is more obvious in a second playthrough. In the second chapter they basically dragged Aerith to meet Cloud. They saved Barret, they tried to throw Wedge out of the window (although we did not see it). A problem is that this seems like a storyline from The Flash.

Red XIII says it sort of directly that fate has been defeated and that stuff won't be the same. Even Avalance's dog changed! In this sense the game fells like a sequel and not a remake. I am curious how they move from now on. You could say it was implied that Barret may die instead of Aerith but oh man I don't want to wait 3 to 4 years to play the next part.

@belmont maybe that's why it's called Remake and not just FFVII, perhaps we are actually Remaking the events into something new

or it could be people are thinking too hard about it with all this time travel stuff and what not, take Stamp, the Dog we see in the majority of the game for example could have just been a rebrand and the one we see in the Zack flashback was the original one

things get re-branded all the time after all or perhaps the one Avalanche uses is a different dog just with the same name after all Barret did they they appropriated him from Shinra

like i said everyone is currently looking for some big convoluted reason for everything when it's more likely the simple, more logical reasons are true

still at least we can say this, it's got people talking

@FullbringIchigo Does Nomura know what simple and logical means? I think there’s probably very good reasons for people looking for the convoluted 😂😂😂

@nessisonett true but like i said in the main forum Nomura ISN'T writing this, i'll just quote it here

also Nomura is just the director and i feel people are putting too much on him, the writers of the game are the same people who did the original FFVII but the main 2 are Kazushige Nojima (FFVII, VIII, X and X-2 are some of his works) and Motomu Toriyama (Bahamut Lagoon, FFVII FFCC, Dissidia are some of his morks) also Nomura is the head director (of which he didn't even know until months into development) but he was only 1 of 3 so i think it's unfair to lay every criticism at his feet

while it's true Nomura likes to make things confusing we can't lay everything at his feet, there were other directors and there were other writers after all

There is also one thing i want to bring up that EVERYONE forgets to mention and that's something Redd XIII said, that the whispers are the will of the planet as it tries to ensure IT'S destiny so yeah i think people are really missunderstanding things here, it's the planet itslef that's trying to ensure it's destiny, not the group or it's destiney

let me explain, the Planet knows it's going to die soon so it's trying to do everything it can to save the lifestream but Cloud and everyone are fighting that that's why sometimes it helps and sometimes it tries to stop them and i think this might tie into the Compilation as a whole because one of the main points of Dirge of Cerberus was that the planet knew it was dying but it couldn't awaken Omega Weapon to take the lifestream to a new world because it needed Chaos to awaken it but that was implanted into Vincent by Lucrecia (Sephiroths actual mother) after he was shot by Hojo

i think that it knows Sephiroth is going to call Meteor and it can't stop it and i think it's only after Aerith dies and she joins the Lifestream that she is able to help the planet save itself

so i don't think there is any time travel shenanigans going on here i think that by fighting fate and winning they are actually setting up the events original story to happen not overwriting them

it's like this perhaps in the original destiney they never left Midgar and the planet died but by fighting fate a leaving Midgar they can now save the planet but it leads to Aeriths death

@FullbringIchigo Not to be pedantic, and you're welcome to your own theories, after all this isn't set in stone, but I can literally shoot down your particular view (or at the least state that it's not a 100% given guarantee) with these images from the final bosses, which clearly show that the arbiters of fate are based off of space, and time, and the concept of alternative timelines originally was born from the very text from these bosses

Again, these are extremely open to interpretation, and could easily sway just as much in your favour, as much as the favour of alternative timelines, it's this precedent that literally makes it a hot topic of conversation:

@Grindagger true but if they were from the destiny the planet is trying to protect, the one where it gathers the lifestream and leaves when Meteor falls then the theory still works

perhaps the Ultimania style book that's coming out later in the year will throw a new light on things

It has been stated this is a remake not a remaster. Don't expect everything to be the same. They are also bringing in elements of the whole of the ff7 universe not just the story of the main installment, those 3 fate characters are not carbon copys of Cloud Tifa and Barret. As hinted in their description it would be safe to assume they are the 3 remnants from Advent Children. I for one would love to see some alterations from the original and even more so for other characters joining the fight as playable characters. A chance to alter fate and save Aerith, not having to kill Dyne, finding Zack possibly searching for Cloud for some reason like he wondered of while still suffering from mako poisoning. YES Mako not Jenovo cells while being Hojo's test subjects. Cloud has Jenova cells because he was created with them just like the other 1st class soldiers excluding Zack and all the guys in black robes who like Cloud suffered from Mako poisoning. But what has peeked my interest the most is the subtle hints that Marlene may be more special then originally shown in the whole of the 7 universe. That seen with Aerith and her response of our little secret gesture. My theory is Marlene may be the true last Cetra, or proof there are more around hidden through out the world. Honestly I was worried 7 was going to be a let down with the rumors and news updates, but at the same time excited to see my favorite game get updated. Now I can't wait for the rest and to see what they do different.