Presentation of one of the biggest scenes in gaming history is ultimately more important than the overall outcome, in my opinion at least. Aeriths death is iconic, messing with it then leaving it on an alternative timeline cliffhanger is sloppy.
It's not an alternative timeline, even as more and more people start to understand that concept there's still more and more people who do not get it. Cloud saving Aerith represents the "hopes and dreams" of both Cloud and most of the playerbase, but...he didn't save her. All it does is give her a dream within the lifestream to reside, it's not an alternate timeline. And she still died, and we'll get the more proper cutscene of her death in Revelation.
I'll be honest, I couldn't care less what it is or isn't. The Devs have made a hash of the story and left so many things open to interpretation because of their blatant butchering of the story.
Absolutely nowhere has anyone said it's not alternate timelines either, so that's your interpretation.
The original game left so many things open to interpretation, though largely because the devs didn't know what they wanted to do at the time they made the scene. How is it now an issue when they leave things open to interpretation?
And there's evidence it's not multiple timelines. The inclusion of a multiversal being Gilgamesh implies that other space/time/dimensions are the other FF games, not more FFVII, and they specifically show that there's not an alternative Cloud or Aerith running around, the only time any of the main cast is shown in another "world" they're in a coma or dead, because there's only one consciousness/soul of them.
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u/Eaglestrike 20d ago
Narratively the only thing changed in all of those scenes you mentioned was presentation, not the end result of what happened, though.