/vr/ - Retro Games

The reason "she" looks like that is because she's John Carpenter's version of The Thing.
She took different forms to hunt and ensnare Ancients.
The hero party killed her mid-transformation of one of their wives.
Or perhaps post-transformation and the death throes discombobulated the corpse.

Reunion is merely clip-related.

It's so simple and yet for so many years it was way more confusing just due to how rushed the english translation was.

>>9649678
Why was Jenova stored in a Mako Reactor when Sephiroth found it? It didn't produce Mako, right? And it didn't influence the monster production, did it?

Yet it's got a bunch of tubes like it's providing some important fluid to the Reactor?

Am I forgetting some integral bit of lore?

>>9649746
It was just a convenient cover. Mt. Nibel was rich in Mako so there was already a Shinra reactor there, it's the closest Shinra property to the North so easy enough to transport Jenova to, and also far away from Midgar in case shit hits the fan.
Good location for Hojo to do his business in privacy.

>>9649767
I suppose that makes sense. But what about the tubes of fluid? What purpose did that serve?

Maybe preservatives for the specimen or something

>>9649767
>>9649746
Well also remember that when Jenova was first found, Dr. Gast, and by extention Shinra, was under the impression that Jenova was a Cetra. Shinra's end goal was to create Neo Midgar by finding The Promised Land, a place with allegedly infinite Mako, and putting a reactor on top of it. And their goal with Jenova's corpse was to take cells from it and artificially create a human with the abilities of the Cetra. So the hybrid could speak to the Planet, point the way to The Promised Land, and Shinra could print infinite money. Which is just deranged. Imagine reading the Bible and getting to the scripture that speaks of Heaven having streets of gold. And rather than seeing that as God's promises to encourage you to get closer to God and reach a spiritual enlightenment, instead you decide to take the information you can find and make a lab baby that can possibly infiltrate heaven. So you can send your armies there to harvest the gold.

Either way it wasn't until Dr Gast found Ifalna who clarified that Jenova was not a Cetra but rather a shape shifting alien who destroyed the Cetra. And that Jenova was the enemy of the Planet. Hojo didn't give a fuck though. Even after finding Hojo and Ifalna he forged ahead with his experiments out of curiosity of what Jenova would do. And since no one updated Gast's notes from when they were still working in the Mansion, Sephiroth got the wrong idea after reading them. Believing that Jenova was a Cetra that was done dirty by humans and the world belonged to her. Just like his father though, Sephiroth didn't care and forged ahead after finding out the truth and went with his own insane Meteor plan. And Hojo, who is also insane, decided to help Sephiroth, knowing Sephiroth hates him, just to see what would happen.

What I'm saying is that Hojo is the real villain of FF7

>>9649818
>And Hojo, who is also insane
Hojo injected himself with Jenova cells.
He wasn't really insane, just another puppet like Cloud and Sephiroth.
Jenova is the real villain of FFVII

>>9649827
>Hojo injected himself with Jenova cells.
When? Because Hojo inserted Jenova cells in vivo all on his own. He murdered Dr. Gast all on his own. He was experimenting with people in Mako Reactors. He was gonna make Aeris fuck a dog. He did it all on his own. He didn't inject himself until the fight on the Sister Ray.

>>9649832
>He didn't reveal he had injected himself until the fight on the Sister Ray
ftfy

>>9649848
And why do you think he injected himself earlier than that? What proof?

Remake is going to make Jenova a cross-dimensional being from another FF universe isn't it? They love that cross-dimensional shit now. Could easily be a final version of Sin from 10. In fact 7R-3 could easily crossover into 10-3, Sin has been resurrected after all

>>9649868
>proof
Don't be an idiot. There's no proof either way whether he did it years before Sister Ray or minutes.
However I'm inclined to believe the former because most of his actions work inline with Jenova's goal of getting the Black Materia to the North and casting Meteor.
Believe whatever you want.

>>9649891
Hojo was doing amoral shit before Shinra even started their SOLDIER project. You can't blame his immorality on Jenova since there has to be a starting point where he wasn't affected by Jenova and doubly especially since he's not affected by The Reunion.

>>9649891
He's just trying to be a good dad helping his son

>>9649894
What did he do pre-Jenova discovery that was amoral? AFAIK the earliest mention of Hojo is during the Jenova project led by Gast.
But again, there's no timeframe for when he actually injected himself with the cells one way or another.

>not affected by The Reunion
He isn't zombie like the clones, but he still attends the reunion

>>9649939
Gast, Lucretia, and Hojo were initially working out of the mansion on Jenova's corpse with Vincent and the Turks as guards. When Vincent discovered what Hojo had done to Lucretia he says this

>Vincent
>I'm against it!! Why experiments on humans!?

>Hojo
>She and I are both scientists!!

Now obviously this was Vincent just mad that his waifu fucked Hojo but Vincent specifies his anger towards experimentation on humans. Meaning Hojo had not been using human subjects prior to this point. I know this may be disturbing to a lot of people given his actions but Hojo is also human.

>>9649959
>Meaning Vincent didn't know Hojo had been using human subjects prior to this point
Hojo specifying "She and I are both scientists", could imply they are both in the same boat experimentation-wise

>>9649965
I think that's a bit of a leap in logic desu

Beer

>>9649874
I would have assumed Jenova was sent by The Creator.

>>9649818
>Sephiroth didn't care and forged ahead after finding out the truth and went with his own insane Meteor plan

He's probably the best informed and knowledgeable being on the FF7 planet after spending time in the lifestream and absorbing the memories of so many ancient people. He has his own ambitions for power and becoming a God after that. Don't start with who the "Real" villain is when Sephie is clearly the biggest power player in the story.

>>9649874
It wouldn't be cross dimensional because FFVII and FFX is somehow in the same universe based on what Kitase said. If Jenova and Sin are meant to be similar beings that would imply that Jenova was summoned to the FFVII planet from the FFX planet rather than an alien from far out of space.

>>9649874
>Remake is going to make Jenova a cross-dimensional being from another FF universe isn't it?

Remake is going to make Jenova entirely subservient to Sephiroth. Nomura probably weeps joyful tears that nobody buying 7R actually beat the original game and dropped off somewhere midway through.

>>9650549
>Remake is going to make Jenova entirely subservient to Sephiroth
That's literally what happened in the original. He took Jenova's head, fell into the lifestream, and rematerialized in the Northern Crater and jump started the reunion. What purpose would taking on Sephiroth's appearance in Midgar serve Jenova if it's not because Sephiroth has the stronger will?

>>9649743
A prequel covering Jenova's initial arrival at the Northern Crater and the ensuing battle would be a legitimately interesting addition to the FFVII compilation.

>>9650576
Not really.

>>9650575
>What purpose would taking on Sephiroth's appearance in Midgar serve Jenova if it's not because Sephiroth has the stronger will?
What else would she look like? Sephiroth was a super warrior already, it's not like jenova needed a better body than his.

>>9650606
It would have looked like the tentacle monster it usually looks like or it would have done would it was said it did in the past and be more deceptive in its appearance. Sephiroth has an actual psyche and running the show.

>>9650606
The goal doesn't fit with Jenova's mission. It's way too dependent on Sephiroth's motivations to make any sense. All the summoning Meteor and trying to stop Aeris from summoning Holy? That isn't Jenova. It's not clear that Jenova even "thinks" in the way that we understand it. It seems to operate on instinct. It can change form as needed but that was explained as it's way of getting close to it's victims by resembling their loved ones. Sephiroth took advantage of this ability to force it to resemble himself and then discarding the body as needed when it outlived it's usefulness, which is what all the Jenova bosses were. If it were Jenova in control the Shinra HQ would have been entirely assimilated. Sephiroth's behavior is just too methodical and judicious for it to not be him.

>>9649678
Why are Japanese games borrowing so much from Jewish folklore?

>>9650549
>make Jenova entirely subservient to Sephiroth
I think it'll be the opposite, Sephiroth is revolting against Jenova and he's going to use Cloud to destroy her. The remake is probably an illusionary world happening in Cloud's head, much like the one Sephiroth created to show Nibelheim, so I'm not sure how he's going to do anything to Jenova. But Cloud was tainted by Jenova's corrupted lifestream in Advent Children so that could still be a thing and maybe Jenova is now somehow trapped inside him and he could defeat her inside himself.

All of this was much more impressive as a kid. Now its just schlock

>>9650785
Are you talking about video games in general

>>9649678
Ngl I would bang Jenova

>>9650575
>What purpose would taking on Sephiroth's appearance in Midgar serve Jenova if it's not because Sephiroth has the stronger will?
Jenova needs the Black Materia. The Sephiroth clones are shitters, but Cloud is a trooper. Knowing Cloud and Tifa's memories, Jenova knows Sephiroth is a hot button for the party. Taking his form and mentally shittalking Cloud is the perfect carrot to lead them across the World to collect and deliver the Black Materia.
Once it gets the Black Materia at the North Crater, Jenova's ruse gets dropped and they never bother talking to you again.

>>9651429
it's always Sephiroth, doofus.

>>9651436
Sephiroth's a vegetable, retard

>>9650576
It would be if anyone left at squenix had the writing chops to pull it off. Unfortunately Nomura's in charge now, so we can say goodbye to the possibility of anything good in the Compilation.

>>9649678
>Jenova, calamity from the skies...
But it says Hongkong

>>9650576
No it wouldn't. We don't need everything autistically overanalysed for us. Make a new game.

>>9651429
They need huge materia, not black materia. That's why they're going through Cloud's memories, to see where he hid it. Cloud doesn't know shit about black materia, what exactly in his memories would help them find it, also when the hell did they lose it, didn't Sephiroth have it until the very end

>>9649678
>menace from the abyss of space
>lose the mental battle against confused emo-sephirot and gets taken over instead of taking over his body

one of the most cucked secret bad in the history of rpgs. only the unexpected monster-waifu appearance and following speculations saved the entire character

>>9651803
NTA but he's not saying she's digging through Cloud's memories to find the black materia. He's saying Jenova is digging through Cloud's memories to establish the appropriate level of anger and paranoia that would lead Cloud to both chase Sephiroth to the Temple of the Ancients and to try and take the Black Materia for himself so that Jenova can mind control him into giving it to Sephiroth. From the time they meet in Nibelheim Jenova continuously gaslights Cloud's into behaving in ways he never would in a vacuum. It's why Cloud has his breakdown in Gongaga after the Temple of the Ancients and why he loses faith in himself at the midpoint of the game.

>Cloud
>I might lose it again.
>If Sephiroth comes near me
>I might......

>Barret
>Yeah, godammit! It's 'cuz of you that Sephiroth got the Black Materia in the first place. It's your damn fault!

>Cloud
>My fault?

>Barret
>I know you got problems... hell, we all do. But you don't even understand yourself.
>But you gotta understand that there ain't no gettin' offa this train we're on, till we get to the end of the line.

>Tifa
>Cloud, we came this far... Aren't you going to settle up with Sephiroth?

>Cloud
>No...
>I'm afraid.
>If this keeps up, I may go crazy!
>I'm afraid...

>>9651643
Chin failed and HK has been taken over by a hoard of fucking ugly reds in 1997.

>>9651828
But we already know the game is going to change to a vastly different path from now on. I doubt all those visions are supposed to be a part of the original story, I mean Cloud was schizo in the original but not to this degree.

>>9651646
Have you played FFXV? Square can't make new games.

>>9651973
XV is fine after all the DLCs and updates. No worse than all the other FFs after 9, they all have enough flaws that some people absolutely hate them, but they can all be enjoyable if you get over yourself

>>9651429
>Jenova needs the Black Materia.
No it doesn't. Jenova is just John Carpenter's The Thing. Its an assimilating alien. It has no need or even capacity for the kind of subterfuge that involves summoning Meteor. Sephiroth's real body is fucked up but he uses Jenova to fix himself for the last fight, building the rest of his body back, getting more "put together" for each segment.

>>9651450
So was Cloud for a bit.

>>9651978
Everybody was mad at 15 because of how anti-consumer it was. Final Fantasy 15 didn't cost $60. It cost $60 plus the price of all the DLC unless you decided to wait for the package deal. Final Fantasy 15 went out of its way to chop up plot points just so they could sell it to you later. Imagine a version of Final Fantasy 7 where Barrett's backstory, a main character and the reason why you do the entire first quarter of the game, was DLC. Imagine a version of Final Fantasy 10 where you have no idea why Sin exists unless you bought other DLC. Hell imagine a version of Final Fantasy 8 where the entire assassination portion was entirely absent from the game and you had to go out and watch a movie to figure out why Squall and all of these weirdos were traveling together in the first place. Wow that sounds really fucking stupid. And it is except Final Fantasy 15 did it all unironically.

>>9651429
Jenova stops talking to you because Sephiroth stops using Jenova to talk to you. His real body gets released after the Weapons awake and break him out as a consequence.

>>9651992
>it was bad at one point
I know, I just don't care

>>9651984
The sentient legion, the calamity from the sky that arrived on a meteor would absolutely desire materia that can cast meteor.
It's all part if its plan.

So why did Hojo think Red XIII fucking Aeris was a good idea?

>>9652236
I mean they're right there, what's the harm in trying it out. What's the worst that can happen. Sometime progress is made just by running random experiments because you can

>>9652236
Hojo wanted to make more Cetra. He didn't really care how.

>>9649874
Turns out she's actually Mitochondria Eve and Aya joins your party to hunt her down.

>>9652450
Aya already exists in the FFVII universe though, under the alias Elena

>>9651859
kek

>>9649874
Jenova came from FF8's moon. FF8
moon is actually a Lavo that impacted there and became the moon itself. The Lunar Cry is the act of Lavos pooping out monsters on FF8's world.

>>9652236
>she's a white girl
>he is a dog
>can I make it any more obvious

>>9652246
Maybe he's into bestiality as well. He's insane and ugly enough for that to be the case.

>>9651828
now that i found the thread....is related to the "is not a normal reactor" at the first mission in the game?, never understood what happened there

>>9652810
explains why he didnt cloned aeris, also nomura art degenerated just like his mentality

>>9652810
Did Hojo rape his way into fathering Sephiroth?

>>9652752
All of which are also Deus from Xenogears. Square had a running theme for a while there.

>>9653530
No, it was 100% voluntary on Lucrecia’s part.

>>9653530
They actually show Lucrecia siding with Hojo in Dirge of Cerberus. There's a lot of cucked characters in FF games but Vincent takes the cake, being cucked by Hojo is about as bad as it can get

>>9652894
It was a triggered memory. He was remembering the Nibelheim mission when he approached that Reactor. The similarity between that and the current mission made him freak out for a moment even through his delusions. It's the first clue that something is wrong with Cloud.

Isn't it weird that Cloud's emo version from Advent Children became the new canon version? He wasn't emo in 7, he was a badass soldier. Sure, that was a "fake" personality, but even after he got crippled, he still came back badass, he reclaimed his badassness and earned it, and then Advent Children took it away.

>>9655517
They fixed it in Remake. He's a doofus again.

>>9655517
Flanderization. I'll give AC credit, the idea of Cloud becoming depressed because he doesn't have a war to distract him from the Lovecraftian hell he'd been living in for 7 years is a sound one. But that's also an idea that only makes sense to explore in a character drama. Not an anime, shonen where you have to beat up the bad guy at the end of the movie. You can't bludgeon depression to death.

That being said people took Advent Children and the part of the game where Cloud is questioning himself and took that to be the totality of Cloud's character. And Kingdom Hearts made it worse since Cloud has nothing to do but be moody and be a boss fight. It totally ignores the rest of the game where Cloud is a goof or sincere like giving Yuffie advice on avoiding motion sickness because he struggles with it himself. Or when he decides that he likes piloting the submarine because it's fun. Or Let's Mosey

>>9655524
Good, his dorkiness is endearing.

>>9649678
mommy! mommy! I want my mommy! waaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

>>9652246
yes, but things so obviously distantly separate species tend not to conceive.

I actually am fine with the shit explanation in game because it lets me experience this game 25 years after playing it.

>>9655524
Was cloud a doofus? remember him just kinda being a chill but a decently well seasoned soldier, whos not into abstractions or causes as much as personal dues. Like, all the tutorial stuff is actually cloud telling randos how he does things from his time in soldier and hes often the one TELLING people stuff in general.

>>9655568
>Flanderization
That's exactly it. The millennial fans are retarded, even by the time the credits rolled 99% of them didn't realise that FF7 Remake is obviously a timeloop sequel. This is despite the lack of subtlety in eastern writing

>>9656646
Cloud does a lot of goofy shit even when he's LARPing as a soldier. Resorting to cross-dressing in order to fool a pimp is an intensely stupid idea. An actual Soldier who was employed by Shinra to put down resistance in an occupied Nation would balk at that idea. But Cloud isn't actually a soldier. He's a dude pretending to be a dude who was in Soldier. So he rolled with it even if he was embarrassed by it. An infiltration strategy involving riding a dolphin to get to shinra's military capital? That's a very dumb idea. It's so dumb that the rest of the party didn't do it, they found an alternative method. But Cloud is fundamentally a goof constantly trying to prove himself. So dolphin somersaults it is.

Just to avoid Poe's law I want to make it clear that I am not shitting on Cloud. I actually think it's good characterization. The goofy nature of the game ends up enhancing Cloud's character on repeat playthroughs when you realize that no sane person would tolerate half of Cloud's antics. And his biggest victory is just self-acceptance. Yeah Cloud is a dork but an extraordinarily determined one. One minute he's carving up WMDs created by the planet itself and the next minute he's complaining about motion sickness. He's a good character. Always has been.

>>9656684
>timeloop sequel
How do you know that, I think it's just a fake memory presented by Sephiroth to Cloud much like when he showed him Nifelheim. Hence Sephiroth being everywhere at the same time as if he's in Cloud's head, because he is. Hence Aeris remembering things, because she's currently in the lifestream along with Sephiroth so she would've been able to get into Cloud's head if Sephiroth can get in.

>>9656865
>Sephiroth and Aerith already know what happened in the original game, likely Nanaki too. Nanaki even gets a flashback to the ending of the original
>Consequently, Tifa keeps asking Aerith what she's hiding
>Sephiroth talking about "that was then, but this is now" at the start
>Cloud gets flashbacks to events that (supposedly) haven't happened yet
>The Whispers were there to enforce the timeline of the original game; we've stopped them so we can secure a more ideal victory against Sephiroth this time
>Spoilers for Rebirth/Part 2 Tifa will die instead of Aerith
>a lot of dialogue is changed to suggest repetition:
Exhibit A:
>Lovers give these when they reunite
Exhibit B:
>Tifa says "I'm sick of this" in the Nibelheim flashback instead of "I hate this"
Exhibit C:
>I don't wanna look back one day...and wish I'd done it different
And that's from the top of my head. It's a remake yeah... and IN-UNIVERSE remake

>>9656908
Anon read the rest of the post not just first sentence. I agree that it's a sequel to 7, I just think we're living through a memory in Cloud's head rather than the world going through a timeloop. It makes more sense, it explains why only Cloud, Aeris and Sephiroth have memories of 7, because Aeris and Sephiroth are in the lifestream after Advent Children and they could all be mixed in Cloud's head if Cloud is infected by a corrupted bit of lifesteam like he was in Advent Children.

>>9656952
>read the rest of the post not just first sentence
The Whispers being a stand-in for the fans wanting a straight remake doesn't make sense if the Whispers themselves are illusory beings made up by Sephiroth to troll Cloud and never had any narrative bearing, so your interpretation cannot be correct.

>>9656952
Aerith's jolt in the intro that startles her and makes her stumble out of the alley in Remake suggests a Days of Future Past event. Her meditation at the mako opened her up to future intervention.

Personally I think Barret is in danger, not Tifa or Aerith.

>>9656975
In Shinra HQ, Cloud gets a vision of Sephiroth killing Barret and Tifa. Barret already died, but was brought back to life by the Whispers; the Whispers aren't here anymore for when Tifa's time comes.

>>9656975
In Shinra HQ, Cloud gets a vision of Sephiroth killing Barret and Tifa. Then, Barret dies, but is brought back to life by the Whispers; the Whispers aren't here anymore for when Tifa's time comes.

>>9656972
>made up by Sephiroth to troll Cloud
They're made by Sephiroth to keep Cloud's mind from straying from the path of his memory so that Sephiroth can see the memory play out. Maybe to see where Cloud hides huge materia later, so that he can go and grab it in real life. Look at what corrupted lifestream looks like in Advent Children, looks a lot like that black shit that Sephiroth makes stuff out of in Remake doesn't it. Makes you think

>>9657030
What do you think the point of the Whispers is?

>>9657030
Sephiroth isnt on the whispers' side. He wants Cloud to break the timeline so he can get another chance to win. Thats why he fucks with Cloud before meeting Aeris. He wants to delay their meeting but the time ghosts were keeping her put.

>>9657034
Like I said, to make sure they keep Cloud on the right path so that Sephiroth/Jenova can see the memory play out fully and find out where he hid huge materia.
>>9657067
Yeah there's probably some double-crossing going on. This is Jenova's corruption in Advent Children so maybe he's pretending to go along with Jenova's plan but secretly wants to stab her in the back and use Cloud to do it?

>>9657075
I think the Whispers are a metaphor for the fans, and the metaphor doesn't work if your interpretation is true

>>9657075
It's definitely Sephiroth engaging in indirect warfare. The vision in Shinra HQ shows a half truth making it seem like the world gets destroyed, conveniently leaving out the part where they ultimately win and beat Sephiroth. He wants to trick them into thinking the "normal" route is a disaster so they'll break the timeline and give Sephiroth another shot. Aeris is quietly resigned to staying the course because she also knows the truth. But at the same time she's convinced to ultimately challenge the whispers and risk it all on the hope they can make things even better. The game shows the Midgar slums are a happier place than the original and they saved more people after the plate drop so she figures its worth the risk.

>>9656684
>>9656865
>>9656908
>>9656952
>>9656972
>>9656975
>>9657008
>>9657030
>>9657034
>>9657067
>>9657075
>>9657084
>>9657110
Not. Retro.

>>9650742
sounds foreign and mysterious

>>9652006
Jenova is trying to assimilate with the planet and use the planet to travel the stars like a spaceship. Think Ego the Planet from Marvel. Sephiroth is trying to destroy the planet and this Jenova and ultimately save the universe in a self sacrifice play. He’s actually still the hero he’s always been. He was obsessed with her at one point but realized his errors. Aka a redemption arc.

>>9657279
>Jenova is trying to assimilate with the planet and use the planet to travel the stars like a spaceship.
Jenova is already implied to do that in the OG

>Cloud
>...Don't worry about it. I understood what he was saying.
>So this must be Meteor, right?

>Barret
>Is it some sort of a disaster?
>It looks like something's gonna fall from the sky.

>Aeris
>...this must be magic. Just what Sephiroth was saying.
>The Ultimate Destructive Magic, Meteor.
>It finds small drifting planets with its magic.
>And then collides with them. This Planet might get wiped out entirely...

It is very strongly implied that the mural within the Temple of the Ancients is a depiction of the last time the Black Materia was used. The planetoid that fell probably had Jenova on it and she was released on impact. The Cetra who weren't dead realized how dangerous Black Materia was and set the elaborate trap that would ensure it couldn't be used again. What could've possibly necessitated the Black Materia being used in the first place is a mystery we'll never know.

>>9651978
>XV is fine
>No worse than all the other FFs after 9
Pick one.

>>9655517
People can harping about this, but you guys realize he did get over during the last battle, right?

Daily reminder that Aeris’s father is Dr. Gast

>>9658132
Daily reminder that Hojo was always a second rate scientist and would never compare to Dr. Gast

>>9650575
I personally think that Sephiroth and Jenova wills has merged, when he got thrown inside the Lifestream, so both are working for the same purpose, for are completely melted together. Jenova wanted to became a god and Sephiroth wanted it too. Two different entities, which pursue the same will and ambitions.

>>9649678
X was the last good mainline FF game! May Square Enix, Suffer the fate of Atari one day!

>>9658156
But did he think to inject SOLDIERs with Jenova cells?!

>>9658132
>>9658156
Daily reminder that Lucrecia doujin is ace.

So is Sephi’s silver hair an effect of the Jenova cells?

>>9656908
if FFVIIR canonizes that the planet is destroyed, or damaged to the point of needing to rebuild itself in FFVII and subsequently decanonizes the follow-on FFVII games, it will have been worth the weight.

>>9654795
>being cucked by Hojo is about as bad as it can get
Hojo is the biggest player in the game. Vincent had no chance.

>they put literal gimps in the remake

>>9649934
Speaking for good son, I wonder what kind of bro sephiroth was like before going nuts. What's his favorite food etc lol. Did he ever take a girl on a date, that kind of thing. Dude could have legit been a great bro before the mansion.

>>9660976
Hojo has that sociopath magnetism. It's the phenomenon that causes serial killers to get love letters in prison. It's one of those things where not every woman is going to be into it but there's a subset of women that are all into that shit. It's the Charles Manson effect.

>>9661359
This is annoying because it clashes with the tone of the game. All things considered Remake is surprisingly good at matching the vibe of OG FFVII but then fucking Roche shows up and then this motherfucker, and the game suddenly becomes Kingdom Hearts for the duration they're on screen. It's really jarring.

>>9661505
>Dude could have legit been a great bro before the mansion
You think a great bro could've ended up that way after visiting the mansion? Sephiroth was already insane, he just found a satisfying rationalisation. It's evident even before he goes postal that he's a messed up dude, he ain't a compassionate guy who makes friends, he's a sociopath who exists to be nothing more than a weapon. Learning he was merely military hardware shocked him so much because... it was true, it all clicked. He always knew he was the best of the best, but now he believes that he is inherently perfect and has a literal birthright to godhood. He razes Nibelheim because – as he might describe it – he doesn't feel any sympathy for those ants, they aren't like him, he shouldn't have to care about what they think, and he'd rather the Cetra walk the Earth instead anyway. Sephiroth was previously a war hero before who defended civilians because that's what the mission asked of him; he doesn't have those guidelines anymore—he is on a literal pilgrimage to kill them.

One of the worst things Crisis Core did was try to make Sephiroth a compassionate bloke.

>>9661542
>All things considered Remake is surprisingly good at matching the vibe of OG FFVII
This is the critical thing that most people don't get and why people are so angry about this remake. If remake had the same vibe as say Dirge of Cerberus or even Advent Children there still would have been complaining. But the complaining would not have been as bad. Because you could look at the tin, realize this was bullshit, and walk away without ever having spent a cent. The problem is that when remake is being Final Fantasy 7 it's the best Final Fantasy 7 content we've had in decades. All of the characters are right. Cloud is the perfect mix of a goofball pretending to be a professional and getting away with it because you don't know his history. Barrett is the perfect mix of righteous anger that has gone too far because you don't know his history. Tifa is the perfect mix of an extraordinarily competent fighter who's A-OK with being a supportive friend. Aerith is the perfect blend of a slightly flighty but ultimately good person who's also a bit of a flirt. So the Final Fantasy 7 that everybody wanted is in there. And then someone smeared shit all over it. It's incredibly frustrating because now I understand that they could have done this game properly and then just chose not to

>>9650576
The chances of that being

>>9661646
Why does the whole point of Remake's story always fly over millennial fans' heads? You would think that the people obsessing over FF7 most their life would get it

>>9661659
I know the point of remake. That is a sequel. That Sephiroth and to a lesser extent Aerith are walking into it with prior knowledge of events that played out before. That it's a Re-make with an invisible hyphen to redo the events of FF7 within a different context. I got it. What I'm arguing is that it's a stupid ass point. I have a lot of reasons for why I fundamentally dislike this idea even if there are certain aspects of remake that I do like. Both as a fan of Final Fantasy 7 and as a consumer. And neither one of them lays in the idea that fans just don't understand.

>>9649678
lazy macguffin tbph

>>9661668
>it's a stupid ass point
We need fewer remakes, so if you want FF7 all over again, the PS1 original is still a great game

>>9661679
Yes. Good. Great point. So then don't remake it. If you are going to remake it then do it right since you obviously don't care about the idea of there being too many remakes. If you don't want to redo Final Fantasy 7 but you do want to revisit the world then make an actual sequel with new characters and new themes involving a different point in that world's history. We still don't know how Shinra took over the world. It's still not clear why black materia was used in the first place or if Jenova rode in on the meteor it summoned. What exactly was Genesis going to do at the end of Dirge of Cerberus. Still nothing on the other side of that equal sign Square. If you want to make an entirely new story then make a new game. The Final Fantasy 16 team looks like they can use some help. Final Fantasy 17 is still an open slot.

That's one of several problems that I have with remake. Square wanted to have their cake and fuck it too. They wanted to introduce this new story with this new theme but they don't want to do it with characters that aren't already time tested. Clive, for better or worse, cannot hinge on the reputation of previous characters to succeed. He has to tell his own story in his own setting. Everyone already fucking likes Cloud. Just putting his ass on the box is enough to make it sell. So now Square gets to parade around this new idea they have using a setting that's already established knowing full well what fans wanted. Everybody saying that fans just wanted a 1:1 remake is bullshiting. No one complained about Tifa breaking down at the loss of her second home even though that was not present in the first game. No one complained about Barrett telling Tifa to hold on to her rage even though he never said that in the OG. Nobody bitched about Cloud getting a handjob even though that never happened in the original game. There's a difference between pushing an idea further than where it went before and driving to another state.

>>9661646
It helps that it's Mortal Kombat 9 on the sneak because all the changes that happen are built into the story as deliberate oddities that clue you in that something isn't quite right. The initial sentiment is "oh here we go, Square Enix being Square Enix again" but then it all turns out to be something more subversive, which honestly ended up surprising me. They played it close to the chest that the "Remake" part of the title was in-universe. I understand why people aren't into that if they wanted a straight remake but, frankly, it was fun watching them get their shit pushed in because of how annoying they were about it for the last decade.

>>9661703
>If you are going to remake it then do it right
This literally never happens. At least not where it's universally well regarded. People bitch about Super Mario All Stars. I think Resident Evil is the only remake that has an overall positive approval rating on /vr/. Be honest for a second. Would a straight FFVII remake ever be well received here? The only possible way for that to happen is if they somehow released the exact same game without any visual compression on the backgrounds and FMVs. So literally just a high res PS1 game.

>>9661723
I mean Mortal Kombat 9 didn't hide it as much. Because it establishes from the first second that we are jumping timelines. So you knew going into it what it was. And even then NRS Mortal Kombat still took some shit. I still hear grumbling about what they did to Sindel. Kung Lao's only defining feature is that he's Liu Kang's bitch. Raiden consulting the Elder Gods but never doing anything is a meme. I did like most of the Kombat Kids though. And also the game is still colloquially known as Mortal Kombat 9 which isn't as deceptive as Remake.

>>9661703
>then don't remake it
And they didn't
>We still don't know how Shinra took over the world.
Are you a literal fucking retard
>It's still not clear why black materia was used in the first place or if Jenova rode in on the meteor it summoned
I'm starting to think you're not a butthurt millennial but an autistic zoomer who needs an 8 hour video essay overanalysing every aspect of some before he can appreciate it
>What exactly was Genesis going to do
Good fucking riddance, he is a faggot. Anyway, you my friend are the point of Remake; the game is calling you a faggot

>>9661737
There would always be bitching. But it would be a lot less ammo to work with. Like say the plate dropping. You might get some bitching because Rude is there and he's not supposed to be. They might say Reno still acts too much like a goofball. But the complaints would be about the execution of the scene. Trolls going to troll regardless but that doesn't mean that nothing matters because they're going to do what they always do no matter what. Not shit like " why did they kill Barrett and then resurrect him 2 minutes later?" Or "why is Zack alive?" The walls of text I've seen justifying that shit. Chekov's Gun. If Zack being doesn't matter because it's in an alternate dimension or some shit then don't include it. If it does matter then why the fuck did you do that?

>>9661750
>that stuff doesn't count because you're a faggot

Look dipshit. I'm not saying that's what Square should have did. I'm saying that those things are less retarded than what they actually ended up doing.

>>9661751
>why did they kill Barrett and then resurrect him 2 minutes later
To show you that Tifa will die for good in Rebirth

>>9661746
Mortal Kombat made it the central premise right up front. FFVII Remake did the same thing but made it a plot twist.

MK is arguably worse because its changes don't all tie into the premise. So you get one set of changes that happen because of the timeline shenanigans and then another set of changes that make it seem like they were that way all along even though they obviously weren't. So it comes off as stupid. FFVII at least stays on the mark where all the oddities are directly linked to the fact that it's a second go-round and the whispers are fighting tooth and nail to "correct" everything back to the OG game as everything gradually goes off the rails. I think it works so well because the original game even makes the train on rails analogy that it can only go where it's tracks let it.

>>9661746
Can you really call it "deceptive" as a negative when the deception is not by accident? That'd be like calling Psycho or Sixth Sense "deceptive" after the big reveal. They obviously preyed on fans' expectations and kept mum about what was going on. But...how else do you do a plot twist if not by deceiving your audience?

>>9661754
It's not retarded, you just don't like the game calling you out, or were too low IQ to notice it was calling you out to begin with. I think they wanted to make the next MGS2, as the FF fanbase is literally the moral of the story

>>9661751
The Remake that we got but with zero tomfoolery and just a 1:1 plot adaptation of the PS1 game would have made the remake just that much more retarded. It would be pointless and not worth playing at all. It would be FFVII: The Worse Version That's Got Bad Pacing and Mechanics. It would have been creatively bankrupt.

>>9661769
>I think it works so well because the original game even makes the train on rails analogy that it can only go where it's tracks let it.
I took the opposite message from that. Because the fact that there is now a script means that everything in the OG game no longer counts because it was always intended to be that way. Cloud did not chase sephiroth out of his own volition. He was fated to from the beginning. Tifa did not follow Cloud and end up saving him because she chose to. She was destined to. And it doesn't stop here because it leads to a lot of questions about why the world is the way it is. Why did the crisis from the sky happen? Why did the Cetra die? Why did fate or whatever choose humans over the Cetra knowing where history would lead them? I really fucking hope the Whispers don't come from the Planet itself because that means now that Aeris died for what is now no reason. She went to pray to the Planet to spare humanity once it fires Holy when the planet never had any intention of destroying humanity from the beginning and has a gang of agents in the background to ensure things happen according to plan. Why was the Planet screaming in pain when the Whispers could've just... not let Mako energy happen? Plots centered around fate, determinism, and destiny really need to be planned out. When Barrett talked about that train they were on it was about seeing their mission through to the end. Not that they were literally predestined to do the things they did.

>>9661783
As opposed to now? Here's my question: if the characters are now free to act free of fate, how is that different from the circumstances they were in before? What destiny or prophecy was everyone following after they destroyed Motor Ball? Which allows me to meander to this dipshit here >>9661774. The MGS2 twist works because Raiden and the player were in the same boat. Raiden wanted to be like dipshit Snake but he wasn't. He got all his training through video games. He wasn't tested by the same things Snake was tested by and he needed to be his own man. Not just Snake-lite. Cloud has no fucking idea what Sephiroth is talking about when he's alluding to the first timeline. His disconnection from reality comes from the fact that he's LARPing as a first class soldier. Not from the fact that there a dude who's literally disconnected from reality running around. Why does Red XIII even know what a Whisper of Fate is? Has this happened before?

>>9661791
In THIS cycle of the timeline, things WERE fated, but not anymore now that the Whispers (metaphor for people like you) are gone. Aerith isn't going to die in Rebirth you dumdum.
>>9661808
>how is that different from the circumstances they were in before
Now they can prevent all the gay shit that happens after FF7 (including but not limited to the ruined world over 9000 years in the future with Nanaki) since (1) Aerith has advance knowledge of the original game, and (2) the party is free from the chains of the Whispers (metaphor for fans like you). I think the Whispers want to create a cyclical world history (aka fans who want the same FF7 over and over) and restart the world whenever the original FF7 ending happens, so it's possible that what we see in 7R isn't even the first in-universe remake. Would be kino if this is revealed to be the 7th run of the timeline.

>>9661791
That may be one option. The way I took it was that the OG game happened and SOMETHING (we don't know what yet) sent everything back in time, causing some of the more mystically inclined characters to suffer a Days of Future Past event and it was that disruption that created the whispers, probably another one of the Planet's defenses only this time it's protecting the timeline. It makes sense from the whispers perspective in this case because the end result is largely positive. The planet was saved and Midgar ended up being abandoned. There were costs along the way but any entity that is happy with the results won't want anyone fucking with the order of events. Aerith is resigned to staying the course for this very reason. Sephiroth meanwhile wants everything to spin out of control because he likes the idea of getting another shot at godhood by changing his own actions and goading Cloud into doing the same. We know that there is literal time travel involved because Aerith's spirit from the future talks to Cloud. But we probably won't learn what's behind it all until possibly talking with Bugenhagen? He seems likely to have an idea of what's happening.

Reminder that Tifa is a crappy friend who made no effort to help Cloud with his obvious brain problems, and just used him as a workhorse for Avalanche. She also said nothing at Kalm, when she could have pointed out Cloud's memories were incorrect, therefor letting the entire team put their lives in the hands of someone who was delusional. All just because she couldn't be bothered to deal with it, or figured Cloud's value as a fighter was more important to her goals than the downtime it would have taken for him to deal with his problems. And for anyone who is gonna try to say she didn't know he was damaged, reminder that she found him for the first time since childhood sitting on the side of the road gibbering to himself. Her response to finding him in that state is to put him to work in Avalanche, because the best place for soldiers showing signs of PTSD is obviously the battlefield.
Tifa was a shit friend.

>>9661847
Basically the Whispers didn't exist at all in the original FF7; they exist in response to it. They don't ruin the themes of the original game or the agency of its characters, they are just making sure it happens AGAIN

>>9661791
I don't think fate applies to the OG game. It's only once the events already happened that you get Time Cops running around too keep everything in order.

>>9661853
Fuck off idiot stop posting this shit, you've been doing it for years. You are an illiterate retard.

>>9661853
Tifa is really bad at confrontation. She's also being accidentally gaslit by Cloud's absolute confidence in his own bullshit. So she doesn't really know what's happening anymore and tries to confront Cloud about it at the Gold Saucer.

https://youtu.be/Skm5p3r-JcA?t=236

>>9661857
Yeah, the Whispers are content with the world history of FF7 and want it to play out over and over. I think it's because they know it's a guaranteed way to prevent Sephiroth from becoming a god

>>9661847
>metaphor for people like you

You know who else pulled this shit? Also I already said I know what they're trying to do. I also said why I think it's stupid. Like Planet being okay with the death of the Cetra but not the humans. Or how the Whispers were okay with Jenova landing on the planet at all but will upend all of causality to chase down Sephiroth. Did any of the Planets Jenova destroyed get this treatment? And really those are just my problems with this game as a fan of FF7. As a consumer I have totally different problems with it. Like how FF7 is now broken up into this mishmash of games that betting odds at will take 2 generations to complete. How many different games will I have to buy before I get the complete story of Remake? Do those parts include separate DLC that I have to buy. Because yeah I played Dirge but I can't imagine how passed I'd be of I bought Intergrade and discovered it was roping in Deep Ground necessitating a game playthrough of Dirge to understand who the fuck Wiess is. Although since CC got a Remake I guess Dirge is next.

>>9661875
Exactly. They come off as assholes because they insist on keeping everything in check. Wedge has a grappling hook now so he doesn't die? Oh well, time cops don't approve! As things keep going and more changes build and build, like Sector 7 having way more survivors this time around thanks to Wedge, the ghosts start getting more and more aggressive. But at the same time they'll also save Barret who wasn't supposed to die. The issue is that while everyone gets clued in that this isn't their first rodeo they aren't aware of the ultimate outcome. Because Sephiroth engaged in some judicious indirect warfare Cloud and company think that they lose in the end so they're way more ready to fight the whispers.

>>9661876
>Or how the Whispers were okay with Jenova landing on the planet at all but will upend all of causality to chase down Sephiroth.
What part are you not getting that the whispers are the result of the timeline being changed in the first place, not generic bad events that happen within that timeline?

>>9661853
>>9661868
Cloud knows things about Nibelheim that he – from Tifa's understanding – should not know. Tifa knows it happened and Tifa knows Cloud knows it happened, so who is the crazy one? Is it Cloud, who says it happened – which it did? Is it Tifa, who thinks Cloud wasn't there, whilst he proudly and confidently recalls events she knows are true, that she knows Cloud shouldn't know if he weren't there?
When they both went back to Nibelheim and saw it intact and populated, maybe they were both crazy?
Given how Cloud reacted upon learning he isn't a cool badass epic elite sigma alpha Chad, I think Tifa made a wise choice treading lightly.

>>9661876
>Or how the Whispers were okay with Jenova landing on the planet at all but will upend all of causality to chase down Sephiroth
Let's ask YOU why, since you're the catalyst :D

>>9661876
>okay with Jenova landing on the planet at all
we don't know how far back in time the whispers can go, but if jenova is still here then i guess they can't go back very far

>>9661905
Tifa knows Cloud was there. She didn't think he was until after Sephiroth went crazy but he took off his helmet when he tended to her. The part that she's confused about is that Cloud's recollection puts him in a different role than she remembers.

>>9661909
Well given what the OG game actually says the meteor fell, no one knew there was something alive on it until it was too late, and the Cetra died fighting it off. Basically it was an accident. This horrible event happened and everyone reacted as best they could. The Planet warned the Cetra to stay away. Then when the Cetra got infected anyway, The Planet attempted to create WEAPON to destroy Jenova and her thralls. But it was too late and Jenova was already contained although at the expense of the Cetra's entire race. The humans had already broke off from the Cetra so they just continued to expand totally ignorant of the catastrophe that went down on the Northern Continent.

Actually I think I understand why this whole fate thing irks me so much now. It's not just all of the other shit. It's that the world of FF7 matters so much less now. All of history now revolves around three people. Even Shinra, who are objectively evil, had people like Scarlet and Rufus who ended up being important to the history of Gaia in the end because they made the Sister Ray and coordinated the armies who fought WEAPON until the party could deal the death blow to Sephiroth himself.

>all those people saying Aeris isn't going to die this time
She's already dead guys how many clues do you need. You're really setting yourself up for another Aeris dies moment when it's revealed she's been dead all along

>>9661868
>Tifa is really bad at confrontation.
Bull-fucking-shit. She fights hand-to-hand, had no problems arguing with Barret over the money for Cloud, and didn't hesitate to confront the Don or Scarlet. That entire scene you posted comes across as her trying to confess her feelings for him and not being able to, not trying to confront Cloud about his weird shit.
>his absolute confidence in his own bullshit
Again, she found him on the side of the road out of it and spewing random gibberish, and promptly put him into combat. I don't care how confidant someone is when they say they can fly, only a retard or an asshole lets them jump off the cliff.

>>9661982
>That entire scene you posted comes across as her trying to confess her feelings for him and not being able to, not trying to confront Cloud about his weird shit.
Yeah, it's supposed to come off that way. FFVII's entire first disc is a series of RPG cliches that are then turned on their head. The game is littered with situations that look like one thing and then turn out to be something else entirely. Tifa does love Cloud but that was not a love confession. The game tricks you into thinking it was. The same thing happens in Aeris's date. All her "I want to know the real you" talk? It's supposed to sound like lovey dovey shit but she's literally asking him "who the fuck are you for real? Stop bullshitting."

>>9662054
Man, it's really amazing how FFVII is shockingly underrated despite being like the most popular game in existence. So many people don't pick up on the subtlety of it's storytelling.

>>9662058
Also I hear everyone talk about how Cloud was carrying the preemptive material and that he used it to kill Sephiroth. But I hear far less people talk about the fact that Cait Sith is carrying the Manipulate materia. Also he's the only one who forces his way into the party. Every other character has to be invited first, even Yuffie. This would be a legitimate shock to anybody who's familiar with Final Fantasy tropes because prior to 7 Moogles are exclusively helpful to the player. So the idea that one would be a spy wouldn't be their first thought.

>>9662087
Yup. Same with his "sacrifice" at the Temple of the Ancients being a sneaky way to lull the player into a false sense of security, invoking all the fake out deaths in FFIV.

I think a lot of it stems from FFVII being a lot of people's first FF game and possibly their first RPG. The game heavily relies on the player being familiar with certain genre staples and so it rolls them out in front of you and then yanks the rug out over and over again. But if you weren't familiar with those tropes to begin with then you wouldn't be vulnerable to the misdirection. You'd just take everything on it's face. Right at the beginning you just assume that Tifa is slutty and rambunctious and Aeris is the pure maiden but the game switches the two personalities around. And obviously Cloud turning out to be one of the many faceless mooks you beat up on instead of the typical lead character.

>>9662106
I think even for those people the game still works. Like 7 leans heavily into the unreliable narrator concept. Because it's just a video game right? Why would you ever doubt what the main character says? Even before you get to the Northern Crater there are parts of Cloud's character that makes no sense. Like how he claimed to be a 1st class SOLDIER yet he's at lv1 in the flashback. Weaker than the lv4 he starts the game with and only slightly stronger than the lv3 you meet Barrett at. Or how he starts finding plotholes in his own story when you first reach Junon. On the 2nd playthrough FF7 gets better because you start to realize how it all falls into place. Like with the level thing. Despite everything Cloud said, he didn't know what it actually felt like to be as strong as a SOLDIER 1st class. So he couldn't replicate the feeling of that strength in his memory. So you have Cloud walking around dressed up as SOLDIER but he doesn't have the strength to go with it. Meanwhile Sephiroth does but you can't control him, Cloud can only watch.

>>9661778
>. I think they wanted to make the next MGS2, as the FF fanbase is literally the moral of the story
FF7R won't be redeemed by hindsight like mgs2 did. You are the low IQ retard.

>>9662125
Even that is undermined later on though. Turns out he didn't need to be SOLDIER to fuck Sephiroth up. He always had it in him. Took a sword to the shoulder, grabbed the blade, and threw the fucker over a railing. But that part isn't included in Cloud's personal account because that was the real him instead of the fantasized Zack version of him.

>>9662265
Which kind of goes into the overall point of Cloud's story. Cloud never needed to pretend to be these big heroes. Cloud left home to join SOLDIER thinking he needed to be famous like Sephiroth to get Tifa's attention. But he didn't. Tifa just wanted someone to be there for her when she needed him most. Cloud already had her attention when he was the only one to follow her into the mountains. Everyone else blamed Cloud for it by Tifa already took notice. Cloud hid his face out of shame but Tifa was just disappointed that Cloud didn't show up. Seriously Cloud killed Sephiroth. No one else could claim that feat. Sephiroth is expending all this effort to trick Cloud into thinking he's a slave while Barrett is convinced that Cloud actually is SOLDIER. The only one who doesn't believe in Cloud is Cloud himself.

>>9661934
>Tifa knows Cloud was there
No she doesn't, Last Order is fake and gay

>>9661982
>That entire scene you posted comes across as her trying to confess her feelings for him and not being able to, not trying to confront Cloud about his weird shit.
"Aerith would probably know how to say it" might give you that impression of you believe Aerith loves Cloud, which she doesn't

>>9661956
Ok but Tifa will die

>>9662615
What do you mean Last Order, it's in Crisis Core too. It's canon. It's just that she was semi-unconscious and hit her head and basically let's just pretend she thought it was a dream.

>>9662618
And Yuffie will be Cloud's caretaker and therefore canon wife

>>9662631
>it's in Crisis Core too
No it isn't, Tifa is KO'd

>>9662615
https://youtu.be/ih7s1e55tZI?t=1102

What are you talking about? It happens in FFVII. Cloud picks Tifa up without his helmet on.

>>9662673
Did you miss the part where Sephiroth knocks her out cold down a flight of stairs with his fucking sword

>>9661703
Calm down, Jimbo.

>>9661359
>>9661542
>>9661646
>>9661659
>>9661668
>>9661703
>>9661723
>>9661737
>>9661746
>>9661750
>>9661751
>>9661754
>>9661769
>>9661774
>>9661778
>>9661783
>>9661791
>>9661808
>>9661847
>>9661849
>>9661856
>>9661857
>>9661875
>>9661876
>>9661887
>>9661896
>>9661927
>>9661948
>>9661956
Not retro.

>>9662706
Kind of hard to discuss the story of a retro game when it has a dozen of non-retro sequels and prequels and not stray out of retro

>>9662725
>Kind of hard to discuss the story of a retro game when it has a dozen of non-retro sequels and prequels
Just talk about what happens in the game. So no, it fucking isn't.

>>9662734
Fun fact! You are allowed to compare old games with newer ones on /vr/; this is an essential aspect of discussing 20+ year old video games

>>9662734
This is a containment board, not a fucking blood pact. This retardation that demands conversations stay exactly within set boundaries even when it's well within the sphere of the issue at hand is the kind of autism that makes people hate this place.

Is 7R worth a pirate? Closest i got to beating the og was grinding materia before the last save point on ps2, might be neat to revisit the setting.

>>9662932
7R is a meta sequel to the original and you need to play the original to understand the story

>>9662706
Remakes are discussed here all the time, LURK MORE.

>>9662932
Yeah the gameplay is fun.

>>9663267
FF7 Remake isn't a remake though.

If fanfic games ever become a thing, like pic related is a thing:

The infamous immortal interstellar criminal Jenova is confirmed to be alive in a prime directive protected region of space.
What's more, the natives have meddled and created progeny from it.
The bounty is valid again.
The natives have very recently acquired vessels capable of space travel.
Jenova must not be permitted to escape. The planet is disposable.
Samus's Gunship enters the atmosphere.

>remake
>remake
>remake
FF7 discussion is forever tainted

If fanfic games ever become a thing, like pic related is a thing:

The infamous immortal interstellar criminal Jenova is confirmed to be alive in a prime directive protected region of space.
What's more, the natives have meddled and created progeny from it.
The bounty is valid again.
The natives have very recently acquired vessels capable of space travel.
Jenova must not be permitted to escape. The planet is disposable.
Samus's Gunship enters the atmosphere.
"Samus. Proceed with extreme caution. The natives covet the volatile dread force 'Magic.' Do not under any circumstances come into direct contact with the crystalline font 'Materia' or it's liquid counterpart 'MAKO'. Chozo records suggest a catastrophic immiscibility."
"And there's a remote chance you may encounter a couple of people you saw during your time in Smash. Don't think too hard about it."

>>9649743
that makes sense, there's always something new about FF7 that I hadn't realised before.

>>9650576
I don't think it would be that interesting. Many stories benefit from a 'backstory', which doesn't need to be complex or as >>9651646 says "overanalysed". The backstory in this case is that Jenova is just an alien virus that lands on the planet and tries to kill everything. It works as a backstory, which is the whole point. It's not the story - Jenova doesn't say anything profound or anything like that.

>>9663386
>FF7 discussion is forever tainted
Probably the greatest tragedy spawned by it indeed

>>9663325
it is

>>9655460
>It's the first clue that something is wrong with Cloud.
It's a nice use of the traditional medium in an RPG where your characters start out relatively weak but are very strong by the end of it - despite Cloud telling people he as in SOLDIER. He's actually relatively weak because, well, he's not telling the truth.

>>9664398
And yet nobody calls him out which is annoying. He's clearly not strong enough to be a soldier

>>9664461
The only people in a position to call him out would be Tifa and Barret. Tifa has her own justification and Barret is just happy to have another body to bring on the mission. Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie aren't going to say anything because Cloud is still comparatively tough and none of them have ever met a real SOLDIER before to compare anyway. Plus we find out later on that SOLDIER isn't all that special in the first place. Most of their reputation is PR bravado. You eventually fight a few of them as better than average mooks and both Sephiroth and Zack are beaten by ordinary rank and file troopers.

>>9664461
Confidence goes a long way

>>9664495
And his story does technically check out. He did leave Nibelheim looking to join SOLDIER and he hadn't yet recounted anything that would contradict his account. As far as anyone knows, he left to join SOLDIER, succeeded, and sometime in the interim changed sides.

Cid is still my favorite character

>>9664516
Also Cloud, despite his frame, is slightly stronger than Barrett who is the strongest member of AVALANCHE. Because they don't have a point of comparison to the operators that can dismantle a country with a small unit, everyone just takes Cloud's word for it that this is what elite strength looks like.

>Barret
>Yo, Cloud! There's somethin' I wanna ask ya.
>Was there anyone from SOLDIER fighting us today?

>Cloud
>None. I'm positive.

>Barret
>You sound pretty sure.

>Cloud
>If there was anyone from SOLDIER you wouldn't be standing here now.

>Barret
>Don't you go thinkin' you so bad jes cuz you was in SOLDIER.

>>9662725
Those "sequels" are not real final fantasy games.

>>9657312
This is a very well thought out interpretation. I really like the “the extra accidentally brought Genova to earth by using the black material”. It is now my head canon thanks anon

>>9665332
Cetra*

>>9665280
You can say that about any FF game starting with FF2. Draw the line wherever you want, who cares

>>9661563
>try to make Sephiroth a compassionate bloke
I mean he was already pretty compassionate in the Nibelheim flashback, before he snapped. CC characterization was in line with that.

>>9665332
>Ifalna
>2000 years ago, our ancestors, the Cetra, heard the cries of the Planet.
>The first ones to discover the Planet's wound were the Cetra at the Knowlespole.

>Gast
>Tell us Ifalna... Where is the land called 'Knowlespole'?

>Ifalna
>Knowlespole refers to this area. The Cetra then began a Planet-reading.

>Gast
>Ifalna, what exactly does Planet-reading entail?

>Ifalna
>...I can't explain it very well, but it's like having a conversation with the Planet...
>It said something fell from the sky making a large wound.

There's a lot of sketchy stuff surrounding how this even happened. What would entice a race of people, who's defining trait is their symbiotic relationship with the Planet, to call down something that could've fatally wounded it? Was it two warring tribes? Was it a rogue group? Aeris said that no one person could ever have the required magical power to use the Black Materia and on the mural we see a group of people surrounding it.

>Cloud
>Mmm?
>Can you guys use it?

>Aeris
>Nope, we can't use it right now. You need great spiritual power to use it.

>Cloud
>You mean lots of Spiritual energy?

>Aeris
>That's right.
>One person's power alone won't do it.
>Somewhere special. Where there's plenty of the Planet's energy...
>Oh yeah!
>The Promised Land!!

So whatever the case, an entire group of people collectively called down Meteor. And from the looks of it they ended up killing themselves doing it. And I guess Jenova killed whoever was left. I'm extraordinarily fascinated by this event and frustrated because there's so little information surrounding it. Just a bunch a little crumbs that we have no choice but to speculate over.

>>9665447
The mystery is what makes it great. Especially now that there's no good sci Fi writers around. If Harlan Ellison or Kurt Vonnegut, hell even hal clement would be good, to help write an eerie and mind boggling prequel that would shit all over anything final fantasy has done since X

>>9665447
The mural implies that the black materia already was encased in the temple beforehand and they pulled it out to deal with some issue with the sun going out? Unless it's meant to be read right to left, in which it's about them summoning Meteor to deal with a catastrophe that was already in progress and then sealed it up afterwards.

I feel like the FF7 remake is a huge missed opportunity to update the game and instead they went for the Evangelion movie route where it's some weird continuation of the story through a repetitive loop.

I feel like FF7's story is extremely good but the presentation is extremely dated and honestly quite an eyesore.

>>9665447
I suspect that Jenova's arrival and the black materia were two separate events. Jenova pulled a Lavos, crashing into the planet in the north, the Cetra heard the planet's cries of "fucking ow!", and got assraped by Jenova's The Thing gimmick, forcing them to use Meteor out of desperation. This successfully sealed Jenova away for millennia but also caused the Cetra massive losses they never recovered from. And it was only when Shinra started sapping Mako everywhere that they discovered both Jenova and "the Ancients." And because Hojo was a maniac they drove off the one scientist who actually knew what was going on, leaving a bunch of half-facts and misunderstandings behind, which ultimately lead to Sephiroth going apeshit.

>>9665518
You know what... you're right! The temple trap was already set. And here's another wrinkle for your brain

>Cloud
>By the way... Why is it that when you use materia you can also use magic too?

>Sephiroth
>You were in SOLDIER and didn't even know that?
>...the knowledge and wisdom of the Ancients is held in the materia.
>Anyone with this knowledge can freely use the powers of the Land and the Planet. That knowledge interacts between ourselves and the planet calling up magic...... or so they say.

Why did the Cetra need to use materia at all? Assuming Sephiroth isn't wrong, the Cetra didn't need to use materia to use Magic. That could speak to and draw power from the planet naturally. Humans require materia to use Magic because otherwise they're cut off from the Planet. Which leads to this horrible implication that the Cetra didn't call down Meteor at all. It was humans that did it.

Am I wrong? I'm not schitzo rambling am I?

>>9665531
Well that would explain how the Cetra defeated Jenova. And how their entire race was reduced to like 2 people.

>>9665532
I doubt it was the humans. The gist of the backstory is that the Cetra were like Ancient Egypt and the humans were all oogah booga cavemen somewhere. They probably did use materia, just in a different way. Using it as a direct link with the planet. Current materia can be used by humans because all the Cetra died and so all their powers wound up in the lifestream, infusing materia with whatever it was that the Cetra had going for them in the first place. So now any buffoon can shoot fireballs, which is what humans promptly started doing.

>>9662936
>you need to play the original
I played the original 20 years ago

>>9665675
You need to beat it, I mean

>>9665532
I'm sure the Cetra used materia just in the same way humans did on account of them not knowing every little detail attributed to them. For example, Aries can use various magics as her limit break, but she still needs materia to cast "regular" magic. Any particular ancient might be able to commune with planet and know some of its secrets, but they still rely on materia for particularly esoteric stuff.

Not retro, but FFXIV goes with that explanation on its job crystals, which are lumped in with normal materia and auracite, the three being sort of three different degrees of the same thing. Materia has the least or most specific memories implanted in it, job crystals contain quite a bit more, and auracite contains not only the memories of a particular entity but also their pattern and form. If we applied this to FFVII, the black materia is likely a recreation of the specific steps needed to call down meteor.

Though I would say calling down a meteor on the planet sounds pretty odd for planet based magic. It's a spell drawing an entity outside of this world to the planet itself supposedly using the planet's energy to do so, it's not like a localized breech of the natural laws that most magic is. Though perhaps the black materia is entirely different from regular materia, being an entity foreign to the planet just like Jenova is which explains why you need so much energy to use it--planet won't aid in its use, and the only way Sephiroth/Jenova could use it was to suck up a lot of the lifestream and force its use as a conduit for it all.

>>9649743
Ensnaring ancients with her big booby ofc

>>9665681
I'm not sure if Aeris is the best example. Aeris is a Cetra but she can't really communicate with the Planet until after the Temple of the Ancients. In Midgar she could only hear scattered voices and the only one she ever identified was Elmyra's husband. When she got to the Temple of the Ancients she described the voices of the Planet as a massive crowd of voices all talking at the same time and she struggled to interpret it. Bugenhagen could also hear the voices of the Planet but only its screams of pain. Bugenhagen is probably the closest a human has returned to their Cetra roots in millenia which is funny considering Bugenhagen is a former Shinra employee.

All of that to say that the Cetra were probably far more efficient in conversing with the Planet. The way Ifalna describes it, the Planet could talk to and even give orders to the Cetra. As for Meteor, your guess is as good as mine. Crazy that the Planet wouldn't automatically put up Holy to shield itself the second Meteor was called.

>>9662932
I think so.
Gameplay is really fun and makes me happy.
I would still play the original for the story if that's what you're looking to experience.
Story and environment is close enough that it's recognizable and enjoyable.
Any occurring events that were not explicitly discussed in the original, I assume are just extra bits of entertainment that could have happened in the original, but were left out. I could complain, but I'd rather just play games.
They have to stretch out the game time since there is less maps to traverse and no random battles. Also, a different group of people created it as to the original, so it will never be a one-to-one remake.
I get enjoyment out of it for a few hours, and hopefully it does the same for you.

>>9665681
>Though I would say calling down a meteor on the planet sounds pretty odd for planet based magic. It's a spell drawing an entity outside of this world to the planet itself supposedly using the planet's energy to do so, it's not like a localized breech of the natural laws that most magic is.
The spell might just conjure a big rock that slams into the ground. That wouldn't be too far beyond the rationale of what other materia do. What makes the black materia so special is how massive that rock happens to be. Comet materia is the same thing, functionally speaking. In reality comet is there as the meteor stand-in now that meteor and holy are plot elements instead of gameplay ones like they were in previous games but still...

That's why I don't think Jenova came on Meteor. The thing is likely magical in nature and probably didn't literally come from outer space. It likely just pops into existence really high up in the sky once the spell is cast.

>>9665812
But Aeris specifically described how Black Materia functions. That it attracts small planetoids towards Gaia.

>>9665684
She's got kinda average booby though.

>>9665518
Wasn't meteor casted by jenova itself in order to do what sephiroth attempted to do

>>9662932
If you still remember OG, play CC Reunion instead. Then Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus. And then later 7R. 7R references story from all of those so ideally you'd want to know them all

>>9665356
No you can't. It has a 2 in the title.

>>9649743
Nope. You got it all wrong, sounds like you weren’t paying attention. Its nothing like the thing.

>>9649827
Na, its shinra.

>>9665356
>>9667180
And I'll save you some trouble before you flip out because I can tell you have trouble reading. I wrote "sequel," not sequel.

>>9666983
>play CC Reunion instead
Nobody should ever endure Crisis Core's story. All references to CC and DoC are minute and the story is better if you don't have CC on mind.

>>9667265
The final boss of Integrade is from DoC, I wouldn't call that a minute reference.
>CC story bad
If that's what you think, you really shouldn't play 7R then lmao

>>9667260
>muh extremely specific semantics designed to nitpick what I personally don't like
Umm ok

>>9667280
You don't need to play DoC to appreciate beating up one boss. Remake's story is brilliant btw

>>9667245
Jenova is exactly like the Thing. It's backstory is that it was able to get close to the Cetra by imitating their dead loved ones. It's natural appearance may not even be humanoid. It just looks that way because it absorbed the traits of so many people.

>>9667265
I played Crisis Core recently and the whole story feels like nothing. They should have spent the whole game just having Zack and Cloud interact. Which I think they wanted to do but ran out of time. That was the best part but you only get a little at the end.

Also I loce FF7R because of the characters and character interactions. That's the best part of the game and it just made me have a big smile on my face most of the game. Exact opposite of CC.

>>9667280
True but you don't have to endure several hours of garbage to understand what's going on in Integrade. Shinra has an underground lab doing things that are even more clandestine than Hojo's work. That's all you need to know. It actually pretty stupid because Shinra doesn't need that many additional layers and it doesn't actually help FFVII's story. It's likely Nero won't even be mentioned again in the later releases. It was probably just a connection for the sake of acknowledging that the other games happened in one form or another in this new timeline. I actually interpreted it as a minor retcon: a sneaky way to imply that Dirge ONLY happened in this new timeline, not the original. Splitting the compilation from the original game entirely. Which, frankly, would be a good idea.

>>9667314
Yeah its not even up for debate pretty sure they confirmed it somewhere?

>>9667320
>I played Crisis Core recently and the whole story feels like nothing.
I took the shortcut and watched it on Youtube and you're 100% right on that. It doesn't have anything to say. Which makes it feel like people are expected to play it just to know who certain characters are. At best it serves as the origin story of the fucking Buster Sword.

>>9667265
>>9667280
>>9667320
>>9667331
>>9667339
See >>9662706

>>9667339
>Which makes it feel like people are expected to play it just to know who certain characters are.

Im the anon you're replying too and Genesis was so stupid I barely know who he is really after playing the whole game. He's literally always quoting Loveless and I didnt care about the drama between him and Angeal and Zack so it just felt like a nothing character. The biggest characterization I could relate to was when you reas a bit of paper at the apple farm and it says he wanted to give an apple to Sephiroth when he was older...but im pretty sure idolizing Sephiroth was something Zack did anyways. There's no one I can figure you actually need to know for anything.

>>9667348
Genesis is retro it had sonic on it.

>>9667350
Genesis is a shit character because he has a bad premise. Besides the fact that Nomura was going through his Gackt phase and forced him in there even though his didn't belong, his character arc is dookie water. Genesis is a discount Sephiroth that was made by a discount Hojo who is upset that he's a discount Sephiroth and will never be a main hero. It's a slightly less offensive version of The meta storytelling that we have now. Hollander fucked up his construction and while Genesis can force his DNA into other people to turn them into copies of himself, similar to Jenova's ability to infect other people and turn them into her thralls, they and himself are all unstable and will degrade and die as time goes on. Genesis, being a dipshit chuuni, relates everything in his life to his stupid ass Loveless poem and genuinely believe that he's reliving it's everyday because Genesis is a mental 12-year-old. No matter how bad he wants it he'll never replace Sephiroth and the fact that Crisis Core attempted to make him the catalyst that made Sephiroth go over the edge is actually offensive.

>>9667467
>the catalyst that made Sephiroth go over the edge
I think you'll appreciate this: >>9661563

>>9665365
>I mean he was already pretty compassionate in the Nibelheim flashback
How

Sephiroth was aloof but didn't come across badly. He took time to explain things to people, let his men relax a bit, and took pictures with the townsfolk. That's a low bar, sure, but he didn't come off as a guy just waiting to snap. It's more that he found out that his entire life was a lie, assumed wrongly that he was the last of a civilization that "owned" the planet and was betrayed by human inaction, and decided that he was owed something. You could argue he already had serious PTSD from the Wutai war but the game doesn't go into that.

>>9667492
Said a few things about his past and had a cheeky laugh

>>9667514
if your ass is itchy go to compton

>>9667507
I don't even think it was the Wutai War. During his heel turn Sephiroth says

>Sephiroth
>...I've always felt since I was small...
>That I was different from the others. >Special, in some way.
>But... not like this...

>Cloud (narrating)
>Am I...... human?
>I didn't quite understand what Sephiroth was saying at that time.
>I was even more surprised by the fact that Shinra was producing monsters.

Sephiroth always knew he was he was fundamentally different from the people around him. As a one man army and world renowned hero is want to do. He just didn't understand that it was because he was manufactured. He was "special" by the context for why he was special took a dark turn.

>>9667514
That laugh didn't look cheeky to me, it looked weird. Like he's snapping himself back to reality after realising the absurdity of him humouring Cloud.

>>9667523
It looked somewhat autistic in game. If I'm thinking of the conversation you're talking about then Sephiroth is talking about Hojo. Which he's talking about his mother normally and then he burst into laughter when talking about Hojo and then he snaps back into talking normally saying "what does it matter?" It's like an artistic person who knows what a normal conversation should look like but they don't have the social skills to keep up. So they insert a laughter because they think it makes them look more personable when to actual normal people it just comes off as weird. It's like Mark Zuckerberg.

>>9667507
>He took time to explain things to people, let his men relax a bit
Briefings and encampment are tactical necessities
>took pictures with the townsfolk
He humours them for the sake of his employer's propaganda

>>9667540
Yeah we're talking about the same scene. I didn't take it as socially awkward, Sephiroth is 100% laughing for himself and nobody else

>>9667518
Yeah, plus he was obviously not raised well. How old was Sephiroth? About 30 maybe? It's surprising he made it to adulthood reasonably well adjusted considering who his father was. Kid was a lab experiment that was then immediately sent to war once he could hold a sword. He obviously had something bubbling under the surface but he had it under control until Hojo's journals sent him spiraling. He lashed out at everyone in his immediate vicinity, which given his strength meant annihilating a town, and then got thrown into Mako where he was locked away in solitude with nothing to do but stew and planning out his revenge by using Jenova as a host. Come to think of it, it's a surprisingly good villain breakdown moment because it makes so much sense. A lot of villains do that thing where something bad happens and they just go crazy out of nowhere. But with Sephiroth it kind of makes sense why. There's a comic book called Irredeemable that does the evil Superman cliche much better than most for this same reason.

>>9667541
>He humours them for the sake of his employer's propaganda
He didn't know it was propaganda at the time. That's part of why he snapped. He bought everything Shinra told him hook line and sinker. If anything he was very naive and the truth broke his brain. The same thing basically happened to Cloud except Cloud had the benefit of a strong social network to help him navigate it better. Sephiroth just locked himself away and it's obvious that while he had plenty of admirers, he had no real friends. All the hero worship in the world doesn't mean shit when you're at your lowest.

>>9667339
>It doesn't have anything to say
I mean without it Zack pretty much has no personality. He's barely seen in 7, his entire characterization is in CC. And actually seeing his romance with Aerith instead of just hearing about it makes a big difference too. In terms of actual important lore I'd say the most important bit of CC is giving a reason why there's so few Soldiers around, a lot of them deserted after their own director ran away from Shinra.
>>9667301
Actually Dirge has very important implications for lore because it introduces Omega. That kind of changes a lot about the world of 7. Maybe Omega will never be brought up again, maybe it's going to be a cornerstone of future installments that connects 7 and 10, I don't know but it has potential. It really isn't so bad of a game that you need to come up with excuses not to play it, and it's even /vr/ related. Also it has great CGI and a lot of Yuffie so just play it. Don't you love Yuffie, play her game now

>>9667552
I still think his heel turn happened a bit too fast and I would have liked a couple more moments where he bends but doesn't break yet. But when you put the character into context he was never going to be stable. He has no genuine connections with anyone. The ones he works with are the people Shinra assigns to him. When the mission is over shoulder puts him back in his box. He has fans all over the world but it's not like Sephiroth interacts with them much further than any other parasocial relationship. He for damn sure doesn't have any bond with his father or president Shinra. So he only has this idealized image of his mother and yeah we saw how that turned out. Not saying Sephiroth dindu nuffin but he was fucked from the day he was born.

>>9667559
>I mean without it Zack pretty much has no personality. He's barely seen in 7, his entire characterization is in CC.
Nigga, Cloud is cosplaying Zack for most of the game
>seeing his romance with Aerith
It's not as bad as FF8's romance but I definitely wouldn't rate it above Adam Sandler movies
>a reason why there's so few Soldiers around
jrjgifjejeifitjnenacifufjfjekrjrbgkgooepqoqj the reason is they're Shinra's elite soldiers
>Omega
Completely gay

>>9667567
>happened a bit too fast
He was ready crazy

>>9667573
already*

>>9664476
>Plus we find out later on that SOLDIER isn't all that special in the first place. Most of their reputation is PR bravado.
This is something that always bothered me about the original game. We never see SOLDIER anywhere except random battles - grunts we see plenty of them through out the game engaging directy the party in several storyline events. But SOLDIER, despite their reputation, is never called upon to deal Avalanche even when Shinra knows their location. Instead he calls the Turks, who are just a secret service task force but don't have the super-human powers of that of SOLDIER. For a long time, I always assumed this meant that SOLDIER was either retired (after that fuck up with Sephiroth and then subsequent fuck up with the laboratory specimens bailing out of Nibelheim) or there were barely any SOLDIER left. You could be entirely right and it turns out their reputation is just PR marketing but given that they were infused with Jenova cells and showered with mako, it would be reasonable to assume they likely were more powerful than your average human. Yet the narrative never shows this, outside of Cloud's tales of SOLDIER supposedly was.

>>9667570
>Cloud is cosplaying Zack
Yeah isn't it weird how everyone says he resembles Zack but Zack is actually nothing like him in CC.
>Shinra's elite soldiers
So they say but that's not the role they play in 7 is it. In 7 the biggest bads of Shinra are Turks and Soldiers are just some shitty mobs you encounter randomly. Weird innit, what happened to all the giga elites?

>>9667592
>in CC
Because Crisis Core is sodomite fanfiction that misses the point with every sentence
>so they say
And so it shall be when you have a monopoly on information. The Turks do the dirty work behind the scenes while SOLDIER is presented as an elite force in the propaganda

>>9667573
Yes but we're barely introduced to the character before he flips and starts speaking on tongues at the reactor. The only time we get where we can really see that something is wrong with Sephiroth is when Tifa remarks that they lost a man in the mountains and Sephiroth dismisses it

>Sephiroth
>Everyone seems to be all right. Can we get back to where we were?

>Tifa
>These caves are intertwined, just like an ant farm...
>Oh, and Sephiroth... There seems to be one person missing...

>Sephiroth
>It may sound cold, but we've got no time to search for him. We can't go back now, so we must go on. We'll travel together from here.

Which given what we know it was showing Sephiroth's total disinterest in people but at the time it could've been Sephiroth acting as a field commander and not wanting to jeopardize the mission with a rescue operation. But I would've liked a few more moments of Sephiroth trying and falling to be normal

>>9667602
>we're barely introduced to the character
So he's introduced as a villain, excellent. We don't need to be infodumped his whole backstory in an 8 hour video essay; let the story play out

>>9667601
>7 shows you that Soldiers are mutants with superhuman strength
>duuude it's just propaganda lmao a bunch of dudes in suits are totally stronger
I don't believe you

>>9667467
Nomura didn't write CC thoug how could he have added him?

But yeah I wish it was just about Zack and Cloud on the run 80% of the game like Selma and Louise

>>9667606
Good point. I think most soldier candidates die of mako poisoning

>>9667605
He was already introduced as the villain. It's not an attempt to sympathize with him. Barrett and everyone else is under the impression that Sephiroth was a hero. Especially since he killed President Shinra. And Cloud has to correct him and say no he isn't because the actual Sephiroth is different from what they see on the outside. And the flashback is Cloud clarifying what he meant by what he said in the tower. And wouldn't you know it during the entire flashback Cloud is so starstruck by Sephiroth that he didn't notice the few weird things that he was doing. I'm just saying that a couple more red flag moments would've made the transition from field commander to full tilt monster less sharp.

>>9667570
>It's not as bad as FF8's romance but I definitely wouldn't rate it above Adam Sandler movies
FF8 has the best romance in video game history. Not Squall and Rinoa but Laguna and Raine.

>>9667589
Weren't most of the Sephiroth clones SOLDIER? Their ranks would start to dwindle as many of them succumbed to their affliction.

>>9667605
>>9667631
>Barret
>He's dead... The leader of Shinra, Inc. is dead...

>Tifa
>Then this sword must be...!?

>Cloud
>Sephiroth's!!

>Tifa
>...Sephiroth is alive?

>Cloud
>...Looks like it. Only Sephiroth can use that sword.

>Barret
>Who cares who did it!? This is the end of the Shinra now!

>Palmer
>Uh!

>[Palmer comes out from behind a pillar and tries to run, but Cloud and Barret catch him.]

>Palmer
>P, p, p, please, don't kill me!

>Cloud
>What happened?

>Palmer
>Se... Sephiroth. Sephiroth came.

>Cloud
>Did you see him? Did you see Sephiroth?

>Palmer
>Yeah, I saw him! I saw him with my own eyes!

>Cloud
>You really saw him?

>Palmer
>Uh! Would I lie to you at a time like this!? >And I heard his voice too!
>Um, he was saying something about not letting us have the Promised Land.

>Tifa
>Then what?
>Does that mean that the Promised Land really exists and that Sephiroth's here to save it from Shinra?

>Barret
>So he's a good guy then?

>Cloud
>Save the Promised Land? A good guy? No way!!
>It's not that simple! I know him! >Sephiroth's mission is different!

>>9667592
The biggest tonal shift in FFVII compared to the later entries is that the original game is far more grounded. The troops and SOLDIER are more like Marines and Navy SEALs that happen to be corporate owned in a world of laissez faire capitalism where a monopoly became the government. All the DBZ shit didn't show up until later games.

>>9667631
It's not really the flashback's purpose to explain Sephiroth's slippage. The game handles things in reverse where you learn more about what motivated him (and Cloud for that matter) as you unravel the backstory.

>>9667691
Yes but some people don't want to watch a story unravel. If they don't immediately know what's going on they will pause the movie/game/show and read the wiki for 3 hours, then resume

>>9667665
They're already bathed in Mako with Mako infused eyes though, they're weird ass mutants. Doesn't sound grounded to me.

>>9667708
They're "strong" by human standards but not superhumanly so. That's the difference. The fight at the end of Advent Children has no place in the original game.

Artificial Academy 2 General /aa2g/ #1270
Disappointment Edition
Welcome, this general is for the discussion of ILLUSION's Artificial Academy 2.
COPY ERROR MESSAGES WITH CTRL+C, PASTE THEM WITH CTRL+V INTO GOOGLE TRANSLATE. JUST CLICK THE WINDOW AND PRESS CTRL + C, IT WORKS.
>Downloads:
/aa2g/ Pre-Installed Game, AA2Mini: https://tsukiyo.me/AAA/AA2MiniPPX.xml
AAUnlimited updates: https://github.com/aa2g/AA2Unlimited/releases
>Information:
AA2Mini Install Guide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vS8Ap6CrmSNXRsKG9jsIMqHYuHM3Cfs5qE5nX6iIgfzLlcWnmiwzmOrp27ytEMX03lFNRR7U5UXJalA/pub
General FAQ:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200216045726/https://pastebin.com/bhrA6iGx
AAU Guide and Resources (Modules,

>>9667708
That's not what grounded necessarily means. If a world where mutants with Mako-infused eyes existed, you rationally wouldn't expect the anime bullshit of the compilation to be how the world works

>>9667723
Why would I want to play that

>>9667724
retarded people cant handle abstract concepts like suspension of disbelief. even the concept of an abstract concept is foreign to retards

>>9667708
Fantastical elements doesn't stop a story from being grounded as long as it's handled well. The Mako infusions and SOLDIER could just as easily be a stand-in for Project Stargate if Project Stargate actually worked. Or Jenova's mind control being a stand in for gaslighting someone until they start doing things they'd never do under normal circumstances and eventually they end up abandoning their own personality entirely until they become their willing slave. Something that can only be fixed with counseling from a loved who can help rebuild their ego bit by bit. It's all in the execution.

>>9667724
Right. FFVII establishes what's "normal" for it's world. A killer alien showing up is "normal" for The Thing but that doesn't mean a sequel should be Independence Day. The tone is different.

>>9667738
Most of FFVII's fantasy is allegorical anyway, with real world comparisons. Mako is a stand in for any natural resource and Shinra is an obvious commentary on the military industrial complex along with increasing corporate influence. For a game made in 1997 it was awfully prescient to point out that big corporations will keep expanding until there's nothing left to compete. How much does Disney own now compared to the 90s? The goddamn President uses Twitter nowadays and Elon Musk causes huge swings in the stock market when he says anything at all. We literally just had a train blow up and poison an entire town in Ohio and everyone in Washington is like "Eh, that's business. MAYBE we'll clean it up." This is all shockingly Shinra-like. The game uses a pastiche of RPG-isms to make it...well...fantasy. But it's making quite a few relevant socipolitical statements about our own world.

>>9667801
This entire post is as surface level and self-congratulatory as FFVII. Good job!

>>9667804
Right because it's really a stretch to see FFVII as having an environmentalist message. That's not something a reasonable person would conclude.

>>9667804
>a story has themes
>gets called pretentious for acknowledging them
Your brain is so fucking smooth I should rub my dick on it. You don't even know how pretentious you are, which is the opposite effect of your intent

>>9667724
>you rationally wouldn't expect the anime bullshit of the compilation to be how the world works
I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about. By the end of the game you're fighting ancient giants robots to get to an evil alien protected by what looks like a flying angel. None of this is any way grounded, most of it isn't even really explained. The only complaint you can have about lack of "realism" in compilation is over the top fight choreography of Advent Children. People jumping really high and shit. Yeah that's silly but that's just visuals really, has no bearing on the story.

>>9667842
Anime doesn't mean fighting magical creatures you disingenuous swine

>>9667868
FF7 was alwaysanime as fuck it was like Battle Angle Alita, and the buster sword was just funny

>>9667801
>zoomer thinks coorperations and the government are only now this bad

So there was this thing called cigarettes and oil...

>>9667636
My Lagunigga

>>9667941
Are we talking about the same thing? I'm talking about the garbage fanfiction writing devoid of subtlety. I'm talking about the uncanny or in practice nonexistent chains of command and overall incongruence with how & why organisations and individuals make decisions.

>>9667817
Koalas all over /vr/

>>9667842
The last boss is Sephiroth using Jenova to rebuild the parts of his body he lost after Cloud threw him into the Mako. It's not him going into Super Saiyan mode. Jenova being able to do shit like that was long established by the endgame. In fact, the last boss is what makes it clear Sephiroth is in control. By the time you face his real body he's filled it with Jenova and kept his self-awareness, unlike all the other people who end up turning into mindless monsters.

>>9667958

>>9668015
i genuinely do not understand how people think jenova has any agency in the ff7 plot. do they just ignore that the game's main driving force is sephiroth gaslighting cloud and their rivalry. the last encounter is literally them fighting shirtless. sephiroth is the villain and jenova is just a plot device

>>9668038
It's all a part of people not realizing that FF7's theme is subverting common JRPG plot tropes, such as "the bad guy was really a pawn of an even badder guy all along".

>>9667245
>>9667338
lol

C'maaaan. You can do better than that.

So what exactly would've happened in Sephiroth won?

>>9668189
flat tax across the planet

>>9668189
Meteor would hit the planet and when it tried to heal itself from the damage Sephiroth would be in the center of it absorbing all that power instead, becoming something akin to a god. I say akin because it's not clear what the end result would really be. But the planet itself would be left as a lifeless husk and Sephiroth would be free to either sit as king of nothing or fuck off into dark space looking for another world.

>>9667570
More like Alphag & Omegay.

>>9668171
Daily reminder there are characters named Dominos and Hutt in FF7 but translators fucked it up

>>9661853
>tifa could have questioned Cloud publicly for being wrong

The game was made by Japanese people where doing this would be unconscionable

>>9668215
Sounds more fun than the sad emo future of Advent Children

>>9668015
Oh, he's just receiving magic powers from a supreme alien being because he lost bodyparts after falling into a stream of human souls? Phew I thought it was something weird
>>9667868
Are giants robots not anime enough for you? What the fuck is this argument man

>>9668038
because its largely interpretative. I always saw it as sephiroth died, but his wishes and a ghost of him lived on inside jenovas body. Jenova had the instinct and biology to do such things, and sephiroth had the memories and the knowledge and they merged into one entity.

>>9668526
Come to think of it, Sephiroth's plan seems...stupid? Was his endgame really to just assfuck the planet into extinction and then just hang out? He needed to get out of the Mako to so Meteor helped with that because it caused the planet to release Sapphire Weapon which incidentally freed him, too. But what the hell was he planning after that? Dude had like five years alone with his thoughts and this was the best he came up with?

>>9668763
Then what was his body doing there? If Jenova was in charge why would it command Cloud to give the black materia to Sephiroth's corpse? Even if you want to say that the Jenova cells in Sephiroth were still active, there are plenty of Jenova bodies not encased in carbonite deep underground that would make far more convenient recipients.

>>9668763
Sephiroth was alive.
Bisected and incapacitated in the solid materia, but alive.
Jenova cells and the lifestream basically gave him an internet-like reach across the entire world.

>>9668797
It's stupid but it is the blasphemous amalgamation of both Shinra and Jenova's end goals. Shinra has already taken over the world. After the fall of Wutai they have no opponents left. So the Neo-Midgar plan is entirely pointless. They're trying to wring out infinite money from a planet that they already own. But they still want it. Because the Promised Land is the only thing they don't have. And Jenova, it's just an animal. A predator that does what predators do. Sephiroth is the worst of both worlds. He's a nightmare that has the predatory nature of Jenova but the endless ambition of Shinra. He probably would have turned into an interplanetary plague if left to his own devices. He would've took all the Mako and then hijacked the planet to hunt other planets with life in them. Becoming progressively more powerful and knowledgeable the more Mako he feeds on

>>9668836
Yeah, that's my understanding. The Jenova cells in Sephiroth are the plot device that allowed his survival to be plausible. He's pulling a Captain America.

>>9668539
No, Crisis Core is anime due to the Kingdom Hearts dialogue

>>9668818
I never said jenova was in charge, but jenova isn't lucid. Jenova's head is with Sephiroth though and the character says he wants to merge with her. Other characters refer to both like it's both doing it. There's a lot of talk of cells and genetics affirming this mix of 3 things is causing the issues.
>>9668836
The game talks like he isn't fully alive. Like his consciousness is moving in another manner, since his body is stuck in the crater. Re reuinion is also happening, despite jenova supposedly being dead. Like he and jenova are some how a virus on the planet. I don't think its incorrect to say he's not in a state that's fully alive and he's some a different entity. It's not a ghost, but it's not defined. 7 feels loose as opposed to say 10 which defines an "unsent" To me 10 is a re-do of 7's elements on this. Sin is like Jenova a big monster, but the person that becomes sin can control it at times. Alive or dead is a little less relevant here.

>>9669079
>merge

>>9669079
>The game talks like he isn't fully alive
Well the game can talk all it likes. That's what happened. He got swept there by the very currents he's now using to control his puppets across the world.

Walking in there and finding him suspended as a sinister upper torso like that was a big 'show don't tell' moment.

And remember, Hojo is a hack. He stole all his research from Gast. He's wrong about everything. He thought Jenova was a Cetra, for example.

Jenova's not dead, just braindead.
Sephiroth is brainful, and the strongest thing congruent to the genetic makeup of Jenova's remnants. With that, he took the pilot seat of an immortal shapeshifting god virus.

>>9669304
You're correct in that he stole his research from Dr. Gast. You're partially incorrect in that Dr. Gast also thought Jenova was a Cetra. The erroneous info Sephiroth read in the mansion was written by Dr. Gast. But Dr. Gast met Ifalna later who clarified what Jenova actually was. Which Hojo then stole the tapes from their cabin and he used Gast's interview to test the Reunion theory. Which the Reunion ended up being real although the epicenter of the Reunion ended up being wrong. He thought the clones would gather at Jenova's body in Shinra Tower only for the body itself to start moving to the Northern Crater with all the other clones.

tl;dr most of Hojo's successes is because Gast didn't just sit on his assumptions and sought out more information than the obvious

>>9668763
>because its largely interpretative.
Jesus Christ you people are seriously dumb. Even when the game spoonfeeds you the plot it STILL fucking flies over people's heads. Did people just stop before reaching Temple of the Ancients?

Over 25 years later the OST of this game moves me. Reading this thread has been great, thanks lads.

>>9669396
https://i.4cdn.org/wsg/1675635986910665.webm

>>9668869

My favourite part of CC was when Jenova had a temper tantrum and started quacking like a duck.

>>9667995
Oh I only watch good anime so you're just an ant to me.

>>9669396
Am I a bitch if Great Warrior Seto still gets to me every game?

I wish FFVII had just committed to each character having a class/being a bit of a multiclass, instead of everyone being a complete gish by the midgame.

Why didn't the old man at the Icicle Inn use his black materia to rain meteors down on other competitors in the hotelier industry?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NpNxDHXLug

>>9669458
That would've been better. As well as ways of drawing and discouraging aggro. And for the enemies to be stronger. Basically FF7 is easy game that's also easy to break.

>>9669469
>Basically FF7 is easy game that's also easy to break.
Biggest issue with most FFs from III onwards

>>9669458
Shoulda been
>Cloud: Knight/Magic Knight
>Tifa: Monk/Dancer
>Barret: Ranger/Viking (Taunt from backrow to control enemies + Berserk for big melee attacks)
>Aeris: White Mage/Geomancer
>Yuffie: Thief/Ninja as-is
>Cait Sith: Beastmaster/Blue Mage/Gambler
>Vince: Ranger/Summoner
>Cid: Mechanist/Dragoon

>>9669481
I forgor
>Red XIII: Berserker/Bard

>>9669458
>>9669469
>>9669481
>>9669485
By the Nature of Materia, it's hard to work with a class system . try New Threat mod if you want a class system.

If you want just difficulty you have HardType mod and gjoerulv's hardcore mod.

OG FF7 had some gameplay elements unused or just implemented in few places. These mods make use of that.

>>9669532
Just make Materia a primarily Cloud thing since he's been exposed to Mako and you solve most of those problems. Aeris can use a bunch too since she's your early-game caster and a Cetra. But have other characters less effectively able to use Materia; I'm thinking of how Lost Odyssey balances learning abilities from Equipment by only having Immortals able to do that as a template.
Or don't make what should be Job-specific abilities tied to Materia, like Manipulate. I'm fine with a lot of Magics and Summons being available through Materia since the game lacks a dedicated White or Black Mage and that gives you a lot of room to customize Cloud.

>>9669532
Well you could specialize the stats a bit more. You could give Cure to Barrett and have a tank with healing utilities or you could give Cure to Aeris for powerful burst healing. You could give Tifa Fire + Added Effect for elemental physical attacks or you could give it to Red XIII as a powerful black mage. The problem is that the stats are so negligible that the differences don't matter.

>>9669545
Yeah. I really don't like the idea of classes in ff7. You should try New Threat you'll get more enjoyment out of it.
>>9669552
New Threat uses this approach with some "builds" to choose for each character and also implements some passive abilities. Gear is more important as some weapons and armor present stats modifications or special effects.

>>9660976
yjk that's the kind of girl who would willingly fuck RedXIII if Hojo put her in a test chamber with him.

>>9669563
Why are you so aggressively shilling this mod nobody asked about?

>>9669760
Hojo attracts very strange women

>>9669469
>As well as ways of drawing and discouraging aggro.
Those exist

>>9669842
>Why are you so aggressively shilling this mod nobody asked about?
To dispell the notion that a class system would make ff7 better to retards that ask for it

>>9669842
Hey. Look what board you're on.
Strange, right?
Shut the fuck up.

>>9669396
I just went through a bunch of FF OSTs and 7 really stands out. Dozens of great tracks whereas for most FFs you have 2-5 good tracks and bunch of variations for those tracks. Everyone says X has great OST but it's just to Zanarkand, Tidus theme and Yuna theme, and a couple of extra variation of each.

>>9670216
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkHmhImJCXc
only FFX song that stands out to me

>>9670225
Really, you don't think those are better?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO8EiXx3h7c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fp81GzKarQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVqdYUlg68I

Have you ever noticed how Sephiroth's overworld model doesn't have a mouth? Kinda creepy.

>>9669340
explain how art isn't interpretive.

>>9669304
There's no evidence in the game to actually support that hojo is a "hack" if anything Sephiroth directly lies more than Hojo, yet people trust the word of a liar. Sephiroth is not said to be alive and is rather clearly his spirit is causing all these issues.

>>9670216
Ff6 has some great ones and you can tell ff7 expanded on that similar sound, but made it better exponentially. Ff8 also has some good ones, I still really enjoy balamb gardens theme.

>>9670880
>explain how art isn't interpretive

>>9662236
This. Mgs2 was only disliked because raiden, but raiden was actually a good character in hindsight, now that the outrage has subsided. The whispers will always be the fans who wanted a great remake/remaster and we will always remember how we were ridiculed as Sony destroyed the game we held so dear. It’s quite the slap in the face and I don’t know why idiots just eat it up like it’s good story telling. It’s a complete cop out, used so nomura can infuse kingdom hearts into the storyline.

>>9670898
>it's an argument, someone has to be right
aww sweet autitistic child has to have logic and reason and it needs to right so someone can be wrong? That's ok, your precious head canon is the true canon, now stay away from any media that might challenge you. God forbid you ever see Total Recall and have to spend the rest of your life deciding if it was real or a dream.

>>9670910
>and we will always remember how we were ridiculed as Sony destroyed the game we held so dear. It’s quite the slap in the face and I don’t know why idiots just eat it up like it’s good story telling. It’s a complete cop out, used so nomura can infuse kingdom hearts into the storyline.
Holy Reddit-tier blogpost, Batman.

>>9670918
Really I thought Reddit loved the ff7 remake. Anyways, that’s besides the point, I’m not going to play or support a game that used me personally as a catalyst to retcon what makes ff7 great in the first place.

>>9670916
Cry harder.

>>9670910
Well the other half of that is a clash in theme. In MGS2 the whole point was the AI ripping into Raiden, and the player as well as people as a whole, for RPing as truly great people within their safe spaces. Raiden didn't go through the same shit Snake went through. His training happened in a computer. The conversation at the end was the first time he got smacked with reality which is more than most people will ever get. It's a conversation that has applicability IRL. If you lock yourself in a box with people who agree with you and declare yourself great because you regurgitated what truly great people did do you even deserve free will? That's why MGS2 continues to be prescient to this day although that won't stop people from using social media to blame all their problems on everyone outside of their group.

7R's twist is utter nonsense and comparing it to MGS2's twist is almost offensive. These motherfuckers were bound by Whispers of Fate and I guess the Whispers are supposed to represent the expectations of greatness that was the original FF7. But what the fuck even was the point of that? From a character standpoint none of the characters have any expectations of them. The closest would be Cloud but his delusions are all self inflicted and is him hiding from what he perceives as the weak man he was. That has nothing to do with fucking fate. From an out of universe standpoint, it's also self inflicted. SE didn't have to Remake FF7. No one forced them to. They could've just made an entirely new game. FF7 built its own legacy from scratch so the comparison of the original script representing a fate that's always been there is fucking stupid. Unless SE itself is supposed to be Sephiroth in which case this is a story where a company fellates itself as the hero who broke out of the expectations of the fans who kept their creativity chained down. As they ask for money for a 26 year old game they're remaking.

It's all just so fucking stupid

>>9668763
>because its largely interpretative
it's really not though
you're free to keep enjoying your headcanon about sephiroth's wishes and his ghost or whatever but the game is very clear about sephiroth being the main entity that moves the plot forward, orchestrating the reunion so cloud gives him the black materia, fucking with his head in disc 2, casting meteor so he can fuck the planet up, being the final boss (in some half-god ascended form)...the fucking final boss theme screams SEPHIROTH at you for fuck's sake. not to mention, the sequels double down on it hard, regardless if you like them or not
it's one thing to interpret the game's themes of subversion and enviromentalism in different ways as multiple people have done in this thread, and it's another to completely disregard clear plot elements in favor of what you think actually happened. with no clear evidence whatsoever

>>9671004
Your brain won't allow you to consider it to be interpretive because you've already made up your mind. Plus you reference sequels. If it was so clear in this game why clarify it in a sequel? Besides using additional media when that can modify original creators intent. This seems to hinge more on your need for their to be a right answer and wrong answer. The game ends with one of the biggest WTF does this mean endings in the history of games. Yet you're saying it's all very clear. This has less to do with the content in the game and your own bias towards how information should be digested and on both fronts, you're wrong.

>>9670950
Yes, GW AI was great and interpreted societal trends in such a commentary and artistic way that it still remains relevant. It wasn’t just mocking us or raiden for having an opinion, it was emotionally attacking our world view and portraying it as being created for us instead of us creating it ourselves. Where as ff7 remakes blames the fans in game as a reason for why sony has to change the whole games story. So fucking dumb.

>>9671070
>Test subjects chant Sephiroth's name
>Final Boss lyrics chant Sephiroth's name multiple times
>Lyrics translate to talking about Sephiroth's anger
>Devs even confirmed in the Ultimania that Sephiroth is the big bad if it wasn't already obvious enough
Interpretive indeed.

>>9670950
tl;dr 7R's message/theme is pretentious.

>>9671141
Who is Septhiroth handing the big L to?

>>9671231
the guy who insists sephiroth isn't the villain but jenova is

>>9671234
I was thinking more of in canon.
Shrinra prez? Aerith?

>>9671241
likely cloud while he's having his schizo moment

>>9671141
This is how anti-vaxxers think, they start at point B, ignore point A and never move on to point C. You keep highlighting your point, try seeing it from the other side, if not it's very much a you issue. The game deals with distorted reality and adaptive thinking, yet you are hard line binary on this. Cloud realizing he was who he was, not brainwashed, but the nature of the story lent to this idea. Are you sure you're thinking for yourself? You'll never see the extra layer if you're so caught up in staring at the one you're comfortable in.

>>9671141
I mean who's the villain in Resident Evil, the zombies or the people who created them? On a surface level it's the zombies but really it's Umbrella.
>but zombies are on the cover and you shoot zombies the entire game
That's what your "argument" sounds like. It's not the infected who are the real villains, it's the source of infection. In RE it's Umbrella, in FF7 it's Jenova.

>>9671241
Hojo is the true villain, he’s the father of Sephiroth, and injected Jenova cells into Lucrecia.

>>9671342

>>9671352
>injected Jenova cells into Lucrecia.
and himself. Jenova is always the root of the game's problems

>>9671364
sounds more like Shinra funding all this science and research is the evil. They experimented with Jenova cells, mako reactors, trained and used Sephiroth. All of it ends up in the center of the earth ruining the planet. Like Sephiroth is the monster created by all this, like Sin in FF10, but yu yevon, shinra, is the real evil.

>>9671390
>It's the damn Shinra! It's never been nobody but the Shinra!

>>9662706
WEW thank god this autist with nothing to contribute to the discussion swooped in and saved us from accidentally breaking the rules of this board. If only there were more mass-replies who were willing to shit up entire discussions for the sake of a few cheap (You)s.

SANKYUU
jk fuck off

>>9671141
>Test subjects chant Sephiroth's name
Part of Jenova's ruse to use Cloud's animosity and Sephiroth's reputation to trick the party into getting the Black materia and bringing it North
>Final Boss lyrics chant Sephiroth's name multiple times
>Lyrics translate to talking about Sephiroth's anger
Before he was turned into a retard, Sephiroth was a powerful warrior, and he serves as perfect host body for Jenova.
The final battle is Jenova pulling out all the stops within that body. Playing off twisted aspects of Cloud and Sephiroth's beliefs, memories and fears, with the intimidating angelic form, solar system-destroying illusion spell, laying a heavenly facade over the inside of the crater, etc.
The music is just another part of the charade, and besides the Sephiroth chants, all the lyrics could apply to Jenova too.
>Devs even confirmed in the Ultimania that Sephiroth is the big bad if it wasn't already obvious enough
A worthless post-Squaresoft document, published after Sephiroth was already established by the mindless sheep to be a cool villain rather than a tragic puppet, and pushed tons of merch. Considering that by the time it was published SquareEnix had invested millions in their new Compilation based around this warped idea of Sephiroth, of course they wouldn't backpedal on it.

>>9671354
NTA but how the fuck was that moving the goalposts? Lmao.

Do you even know what that phrase means? Or how to use it properly, for that matter?

>>9667286
It's grammar and literacy, not semantics. Quotations have a purpose. You don't even know what semantics means.

>>9671526
ur mom fuked ur ass tbats y LOL rekt faggitt

>>9670910
>destroyed the game we held so dear
You can still play the original

>>9670541
On PS1 nobody did

>>9671494
What forum are you lifting these old headcanons from, this is hilarious. Next you'll be using the Jenova's head argument.

>>9670923
>I thought Reddit loved the ff7 remake
Even as the credits rolled the average redditor didn't even know it's a sequel. I'm serious. They love it because they think it's just FF7

>>9671494
>all the lyrics COULD apply to Jenova too.
Alright. Give us your piece by piece breakdown of them for the lolz. You did say art is interpretive, so put your autism to the test.

>>9671938
Don't bother fueling the bait. He's not being serious when going out of his way to off-topic virtue signal after his initial posts in >>9671314

>>9671938
No need. Follow the reply chain and you can see the advanced reaching he's doing.
https://arch.b4k.co/v/thread/606519721/#q606539429

>>9671938
I shouldn't have to spoon-feed you this shit.
Somehow I guess you missed the angel facade at the Mt. Nibel reactor too.

>>9671975
That wasn't him, but narrowmindness in the this topic is pretty rampant. It's full of people that want to be right rather than explore narrative. I'm not on team jenova, Im just on team it's open to how people interpret it. It's like you guys don't even watch futurama, you can't just have you're characters say how they feel, that makes me angry! Then I realize a lot of people are need that cause of autism and they take things literally cause of autism. Subtext is hard.

>>9672450
>narrowmindness in the this topic is pretty rampant.
>Subtext is hard.
Speak for yourself.
The ending is more interpretive than the plot. You getting pissy over people saying your headcanon is retarded while also going out of your way to make every little excuse contrary to what the story presents (even when at face value by spelling it out to you on several occasions) that has no basis in fact besides you saying it does because you say so, makes you look like the narrow minded autist most of all. Literal delusion for thinking you're connecting dots when, in reality, aren't there. You're as dense as the "Why didn't Tifa tell Cloud!?" crowd.

Cloud doesn't smile much.

>>9672789
Makes sense that a country boy like him would enjoy Chocobo riding

>>9672027
>dat retarded latin "translation"
>even in the replies they call anon out for his fanfiction
Pffffjjjjjjjjjjjj kek

Holy shit, I fell for the bait. Never expected to be this funny

cannot believe this person is still going with this shit
some people are just hopeless

So why did ShinRa think that Jenova was an Ancient?

>>9672474
See, Im not even doing any of that. If you get this from my posts it's no surprise you get wrong things from FF7.

How does Sephiroth know his meteor plan will result in him becoming a god or godlike being? It seems like a bit of a stretch. Surely the meteor might instead just shitter-shatter Gaia and thus accomplish Jenova's aim.

>>9673569
Because Shinra, as well as most humans, do not know what the Cetra truly are. Only that they're similar to humans, that they have a connection with the Planet, and that there's a prophecied Promised Land they were destined for. So they saw a humanoid person with slight variances encased in a crater and jumped conclusions. Because who would immediately think that they had actually been invaded by aliens at some point in history?

>>9673892
Sephiroth spent days reading the notes in the Nibelheim Mansion so presumably he learns more about the Lifestream and how the Cetra had stopped Jenova and all that from there.

>>9673892
Because it happened before. The Cetra summoned Meteor to stop Jenova and the planet healed itself. Sephiroth wants to repeat that except now he'll be there to steal the power as its released instead of letting it heal the planet like its supposed to. His plan is basically to behave like a parasite.

>>9673942
>>9673940
Could the planet take it a second time though?
I assume when Shrina sucks up the Mako for its power plants, that depletes the lifestream a bit.

>>9673956
I strongly doubt Sephiroth is sane enough to even question that or care about the result. Presumably if he completely devours the lifestream and becomes a God, killing the planet in the process, his plan is just to fly off and Jenova another planet.
Sephiroth's not a mad scientist, he's certifiably batshit by the time he burns down Nibelheim.

>>9673956
Sephiroth believes so at least. The whole plot of FF7 is that the Planet is under assault from all directions. The Mako reactors from the humans and Black Materia from Sephiroth. No one besides the party and Cosmo Canyon is on the Planet's side. That's why Holy was found to say fuck it and just wipe everything related to humanity along with Jenova and her variants

>Bugenhagen
>Holy... the ultimate White Magic. Magic that might stand against Meteor. Perhaps our last hope to save the planet from Meteor.
>If a soul seeking Holy reaches the planet, it will appear.
>Ho Ho Hooo.
>Meteor, Weapon, everything will disappear.
>Perhaps, even ourselves.

>Cloud
>Even us!?

>Bugenhagen
>It is up to the planet to decide.
>What is best for the planet. What is bad for the planet.
>All that is bad will disappear. That is all.
>Ho Ho Hooo.
>I wonder which we humans are?

The most the party can do is prove Aeris's prayer wasn't wrong and that Humanity has enough worth for the Planet to spare it. Which coincides with the party's collective character arcs of becoming better people

>>9673969
Thanks anon.
That makes it sound like even stopping meteor in the first place would risk humanity's existence,
Boy what an ending.

I like that creepy room in the shitty old reactor they stored her in.

>>9673978
IIRC the consensus among the Japanese audience is that everyone fucking died in the original ending of the game. Aeris' Holy rebooted the entire planet. The writers only later walked it back after the game exploded in popularity and making sequels became a necessity to keep Squeenix afloat.

>>9673964
>his plan is just to fly off and Jenova another planet.
No, his plan to become a God. There's nothing in-game that states planet surfing.

>>9673956
That's part of the questions in the game itself actually. That Shinra drained the life stream of the planet so much it's not known if the planet will survive. The planet's cry is meant to really dig in that even if not for meteor the planet might die.
>>9674040
I believe one of the producers talked about them all dying. It's implied and a distinct possibility that all humans were wiped out, but the planet was saved.....but then what's with the children laughing? Maybe that's the planets cry, the planet is now laughing.

>>9674173
>if I just don't read the part of the sentence that qualifies the thing I'm angry about, the statement was made without qualification!
>Now I can be angry on the internet!
Get a life

>>9674040
That doesn't sound right. Otherwise the stinger where the Lifestream intervenes and you see Aeris wouldn't mean anything. The implication is that Holy was going to let Meteor through (or failed to stop it regardless) and Aeris's intervention convinced the lifestream to choose mercy on behalf of humanity.

>>9674235
>No argument
Concession: Accepted

>>9674173
He mentions it in Advent Children.

>>9674276
There's a lot in Advent Children that's stupid. Really stupid. In particular I severely dislike the idea that Holy didn't just vaporize Jenova. Holy really didn't do anything. But Holy being a giant flashbang really is the tip of the iceberg.

>>9674287
Sephiroth treated Holy like chicken pox. Look.
>>9669348

>>9674253
that's not the ending though. It's not letting the meteor destroy humanity, it's the healing of the planet that destroys humanity. Red lives 500 years later. The planet could just wipe out humanity in the process to heal it. The meteor is clearly stopped, as midgar still stands. This is where I agree the "interpretive" part of the game is the ending. What it means, it's anyones guess. Were they seeing Aeris cause they all died and went to heaven? Was it Holy, was it the planet? What happened? I think sequels ruined it, but it was a pretty compelling ending before they did.

>>9674365
That's too dark an outcome for Aeris to show up in the lifestream. She exerts control only for humans to die out anyway? That's tonally incongruent. Seems pretty straightforward that humans survived because they abandoned Midgar and learned to stop siphoning mako.

>>9674543
but I feel its a completely rational outcome if someone speculated that's what happened. I think more they show an image of Aeris to remind people of her connection to holy. Still, I think not showing a human in the 500 year later jump lends to the humans are gone theory, it's interesting an viable to me. I don't think that's what happens, but the game doesn't tell us very clearly, it is open ended.

>>9674896
>but I feel its a completely rational outcome if someone speculated that's what happened.
I think a lot of the FFVII speculation is like this where it technically fits the facts of the game but doesn't fit the tone. It would actually make the game worse because you'd have a story that has a certain momentum toward a particular outcome but then at the very end it just...goes sour. Even as far as the end credit theme, which is the main theme of the game and the Highwind's theme, there's a certain triumphant tone to it. If torn between two possibilities, it's more likely to be the one that matches the tone rather than the one that undermines it. Either all humans have gone extinct in 500 years or they've been given a second chance and learned to live more harmoniously with the planet. The latter was Avalanche's stated goal at the start of the game. Imagine if the last episode of Captain Planet was "everyone died because they didn't learn nothin'." It'd be fucking weird, wouldn't it?

>>9664461
The experiments done on him after the incident, put him on the same power level as SOLDIER 3rd. The only reason he was only a grunt in the first place is that Shinra's SOLDIER program determined that he would not pass the basic body modification and Jenova cell implantation without serious side effects. That is why he ends up as a grunt. Hojo did not care if he lived or died and did it anyway. At the start of the OG game he is as strong as any 3rd class member. Just mindbroken.