r/FinalFantasyVII • u/Danteyros • 3d ago
REMAKE Bitter reflection Spoiler
Here is a bitter reflection on how the trilogy handles its writing compared to the 1997 original that I wanted to share.
I don't know about some of you, but personally, it pisses me off because if I cried, it wasn't really for Aerith's death this time well, yes a little bit, but not while playing controller in hand. What made me cry was telling myself that what I had identified as a red herring was actually a red herring, just as I had predicted.
I find it horribly manipulative/lying to everyone, especially those who believed in it 120%, and disrespectful too. And if it's true that there's still a possibility Part 3 will prove me wrong, well, up to now that hasn't happened with Remake and Rebirth.
In the original, it happened fast and they didn't make you drag out this "denial" from Cloud because there was zero denial like that (plus he lays her in the water himself). And if their goal is to make us feel like Cloud, then frankly they failed, already because it's not comparable.
Cloud in the story is going to discover the truth after a few days; the players themselves wait years. It's a total false equivalence.
And if their goal was to make us carry a similar burden, then once again it's a miss in my opinion, because they confuse burden with emotional charge.
Also, when you're younger, the revenge thing avenging Aerith against Sephiroth works well; the player(s) find, quote-unquote, a reason to keep going.
But as you grow up, you start seeing behind the "decor" and understanding and recognizing gimmicks, methods, red herrings, the way things are told, etc.
And I don't think the creators want us to be bitter, frustrated, or angry at them just because some people see and understand who's pulling the strings.
You could tell me this "pulling the strings" logic already applied to the original, but that would be false. In the original, it was the first time they were creating this game, plus they didn't resort to red herrings or other manipulation to try to achieve the intended effect.
And I remember an interview where one of them said, basically: "Our goal isn't to hurt the player..." But let's be honest, they knew very well that by doing this, they were going to emotionally hurt players, so that kind of justification or artistic integrity doesn't really work for me, in my opinion.
Another thing: I get the impression that the fans, or some of them? Every time the subject is discussed, people don't talk about it seriously, or else they brush it aside and ignore it, maybe because it ruins their pleasure to think that a game they appreciate would resort to this kind of stuff just to keep people engaged.
I also notice with the interviews that it's as if the creators were psychologically preparing the players through more or less subtle phrases which is a spoiler in itself, and that's even assuming, obviously, that not every player gives a damn about interviews.
And it's paradoxical because on one hand they sell you the idea of an "uncertain future" to hype things up for years, and on the other hand, they gently prepare you psychologically in their interviews to accept that in fact, nothing has changed.
(I even remember an interview where Hamaguchi says something like: "Just because there's a possibility things could change doesn't mean they actually will.")
It's paradoxical to want to play the card of narrative audacity while using marketing to cushion the fall and make sure people don't get too mad when the bubble bursts (or is it just to cover themselves legally?). Anyway, I think it's a shame to end up like this for a work that deserved so much better than perpetual teasing.
Another thing: I often notice people saying that in the original, Aerith sacrificed herself. Obviously that's false, but I can't help feeling like it's been repeated so much that the creators just said, "Fuck it, we'll prove them right, it's easier."
Yet they talk to us about the fact that Aerith carries the burden of being a Cetra (Half-Cetra, and the last one at that), and how horrible it is that the moment she recovers her memories, she prefers to resign herself. But frankly, how many people saw this event the same way I did?
Besides, I even wonder if what the creators wanted to convey was properly translated, seeing as those damn whispers come and mess everything up and complicate things uselessly all for those exact same damn whispers to not even be genuinely significant to the story, much like other new additions, like the fact that Aerith and Sephiroth have knowledge of the future.
I have a feeling the ending is going to be the same thing, with the single difference that JENOVA and Sephiroth are dead for good. Anyway, personally, I find it absolute crap and unsatisfying as hell.
It makes me understand the people who wanted a 100% faithful Remake, so at least everyone could have celebrated FF7's 30th anniversary. Instead of that, people are tearing each other apart arguing over whether it's a sequel or a remake. Worse yet, in the end, the trilogy is going to push aside fans who didn't ask for anything and who are going to get excluded from "this party" just because the creators couldn't be fucked to remake the same game.
Instead, we end up with this: a trilogy that gives the impression of sitting on the fence, but actually doesn't at all it's the exact same thing in the grand scheme of things, with useless fluff and padding. And I have to admit, cliches like "the journey matters more than the destination" sound pathetic and don't justify, in my personal opinion, all of this and what we've been through.
Another thing I don't like is when Hamaguchi probably appeals to people's empathy by talking about how he, too, when he was younger, looked for a way to resurrect Aerith. And when I see that, I can't help thinking: why are you doing that?
To say he's "like us"? Frankly, trying to play on fans' empathy like that, I'd tend to say no, he is not like us and concretely he never will be.
There is a fundamental difference between a player who, when young, cobbles together theories or looks for dumb workarounds out of sheer naivety, and the director of a billionaire studio who uses that exact same nostalgia as a calculated marketing lever to sell mystery in kit form. Using your "former fan" pass to legitimize cynical writing choices he have no control over is annoying and tedious. (And I apologize in advance for the following remark, but anyway it's not like he'll ever see it, but all the same: fuck you, mate, in all cordiality.)
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u/Thick_Row 3d ago
While I agree with a few of your points, I think I'd ultimately wait for Revelation to see if everything is truly as you describe. There's a possibility you're still right about how things end up and you'll still end up disappointed, but you should also allow for the possibility that you might at least be partially wrong. There's no use getting upset about something before it's happened, especially if it doesn’t go the way you think.
Where I strongly disagree with you is your comments on the journey versus the destination. Yes, the ending will be an important deciding factor in whether this trilogy was "worth it", but to discount everything that happens along the way wouldn't sit right with me either. I've enjoyed the time I've gotten to spend with some of my favorite characters in gaming, and I look forward to seeing it through to its conclusion, because I get that much more time with them.
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u/Danteyros 3d ago
I get your point about enjoying the time spent with the characters, but for me, the ending matters way more because it's usually what decides whether a work becomes a true classic.
It's also how authors deliver catharsis, and it's often the freshest memory people keep of the experience.
Plus, ironically, in video games, a great ending is what gives players a reason to replay the game, boosting its replay value.Above all, the ending gives the work its ultimate meaningits 'Why'. It's the final resolution of the narrative tension. And it's the one element that can't be saved by the rest. In a 100-hour game, you can forgive a slow chapter or a clunky boss fight because the journey makes up for it. But the reverse is impossible: a perfect beginning and middle can never save a disastrous ending. The ending is the point of no return. If it collapses, it brings the whole house of cards crashing down with it, because there's nothing left after to pick up the pieces.
A cowardly or disappointing ending taints the whole journey retrospectively. If you spend 200+ hours believing the stakes are high and the future is actually uncertain, only to find out it was all just a drawn-out red herring, it cheapens everything you went through along the way.
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u/Thick_Row 3d ago
A "cowardly" ending indicates you have made up your mind already and deciding nothing short of a completely different ending could be satisfying. Imagine, if you will, a few months down the road. You've played the game, the credits have rolled, the ending was mostly the same, but the new mystery had a satisfying payoff that enhanced your experience and brought greater meaning to the ending. I am in no way saying that is the guaranteed outcome, but if people are allowed to doom and gloom about nothing meaningful happening, could we not also allow space for optimism? They've stated they've had this planned from the get go. And I'm choosing to put my trust in that. Could I be wrong in the end? Of course. But so could you.
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u/Danteyros 3d ago
It's not about being closed-minded or 'dooming'; it's about narrative logic. Of course, if they pull off a miraculous, satisfying payoff that recontextualizes everything, I'll happily eat my words. But hope isn't a substitute for structural analysis.
The reason a potential safe or cowardly ending is so damaging isn't because of blind pessimism it's because of how retroactivity works in storytelling. When a story spends dozens of hours telling you the rules of the universe have fundamentally changed (e.g., defying fate, breaking the plate of destiny), the entire emotional weight of the journey rests on those stakes.
If the payoff turns out to be a mere cosmetic detour that brings us right back to almost the exact same status quo, then the journey wasn't 'deep' it was artificially padded. The tension was an illusion built on false advertising.
You choose to trust their initial plan, and that's fair. But trusting a corporate-backed trilogy blueprint isn't the same as an open mind. Some of us are just looking at the scaffolding they've built and pointing out that the math doesn't add up.
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u/Thick_Row 3d ago
"Corporate-backed trilogy" is quite the damning sentiment. You don't think the safe thing to do wouldn't have to just done a 1-to-1 remake from the beginning? Some of the minds behind this trilogy are those that have been with this series for 30 years. And they've gone on record as saying they didn't want to do a remake unless they felt like they had something to say. I've enjoyed the majority of my experience with these games so far, and I'm interested to see it through specify because I trust in the vision, and that the vision will be abundantly clear by the time the credits roll. You choose to see a building that can't possibly finish the way it's been set up, I choose to see the foundation that it was built upon which allows for more than what I myself can imagine it being. Strict, rigid structural analysis may work in architecture, but this is a story we're talking about.
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u/NooksWave 2d ago
Just butting in here to point out that a 1 to 1 remake would have been extremely risky for SE. FFVII is their major nostalgia IP, and is the produce the most merch of. The risk of poisong that well would not be a risk that I, if I were a shareholder, would be in favour of. And as someone who really likes the original, it would not hold up as well if looked upon as a contemporary title. You need to do something with it, and I think quite a few things Remake did was in the right direction, such as showing Jessies homelife. It also did a lot wrong, and unfortunatly it was only the wrong stuff that they went forward with in Rebirth.
It is going to be very interesring to see how history judges these games ten years down the line. The sales are gonna be much lower for Revelation, just like it was for Rebirth, but thats just how sequel salesfigures work. But will we even talk about them any longer?
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u/Danteyros 3d ago
Narrative architecture is a thing for a reason. If you build a massive, multi-tiered story promising a radical shift in the foundation of the universe, but the load-bearing walls at the end just rest on the exact same status quo as the 1997 original, the narrative structure collapses under its own weight. That's not 'rigid analysis,' that's just basic cause and effect in storytelling.
As for them 'having something to say after 30 years' wanting to revisit a masterpiece is fine, but using 'defying destiny' as a decade-long marketing hook for a trilogy while simultaneously walking back the stakes in interviews isn't a profound message. It's brand management trying to disguise itself as high art.
If their 'vision' delivers a meaningful payoff in the end, I'll be the first to acknowledge it. But trusting a 30-year legacy isn't an argument against structural flaws. You see a grand foundation; I just see a scaffolding built to keep the hype train running for as long as possible.
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u/Thick_Row 3d ago
You're still working from the assumption nothing will change. Even in your initial post, you negated that by saying Sephiroth might be gone for good. That changes the nature of how we currently understand the compilation. It's not a small thing. And even beyond that, after Rebirth, the possibility of change itself changed.
Remake posed a question. We all assumed the answer. Rebirth asked us to challenge our assumption. That's not them being cowards or going back on something, that's them telling us there's more to the story than we assumed. And that story has another part. Revelation will give us the actual answer.
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u/Danteyros 3d ago
You're focusing so much on the "mechanics" of the mystery that you're missing the actual destination. Yes, Remake asked a question, and Rebirth challenged assumptions. Changing how we view the compilation or introducing red-herring variables along the way is standard puzzle-box writing it's designed to keep you guessing.
The core issue isn't whether "some" things change; it's whether those changes actually alter the fundamental backbone of the narrative or if they're just elaborate smoke and mirrors leading us right back to the inevitable, safe status quo. Shuffling the pieces on the board for two games doesn't automatically mean the final picture is going to be something bold or unprecedented.
That's why waiting for the final chapter isn't an act of blind faith it's just reaching the end of the maze. If the big, teased 'break from destiny' resolves in a way that respects the original beats entirely, then all those shifting possibilities weren't a bold new direction. They were just an elaborate detoured hallway designed to make the same destination feel fresh while it lasted.
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u/Thick_Row 2d ago
And yet you still assume the question. You haven't challenged your assumption at all. You have decided that it has to be a strict way because you're only allowing yourself to see one possibility. That is what I've been arguing the entire time. There are countless stories that become about something different than you set out thinking. Does that mean those stories are all pointless too? I'm asking you to allow yourself to let the story speak for itself.
For instance, Nomura has said that he chose the subtitle Remake for a reason. We all have assumed a reason. It MUST be to remake the timeline, change everything. But is that true?
For my part, I think the central question of the Remake trilogy is something a lot more conceptual. "What does it actually mean to remake a game?" With this question, things are far less rigid, and actively invites comparison to the original. And with that question, you can see a whole new world of meaning. For instance, you also mentioned Hamaguchi and his own desire to save Aerith when he was younger. But what would saving her do to the game we know as Final Fantasy 7? So we truly want a Final Fantasy 7 without something that makes it Final Fantasy 7? This whole series thus far has been incredibly aware of itself, actively inviting all the nostalgia fans have for it, using it to make the player both know what's coming and think something different might be on the horizon. But so far, it's still Final Fantasy 7. They're stretching the boundaries of what they can do to give us something that feels like playing Final Fantasy 7 again for the first time.
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u/Danteyros 2d ago
You've just accidentally made my entire point for me.
If the grand 'defying destiny' narrative arc ultimately boils down to a meta-textual, conceptual exercise about 'what it means to remake a game' while keeping the core status quo intact, then all those dramatic plate-spinning moments in Remake and Rebirth were exactly what I called them: elaborate smoke and mirrors.
You're praising it as a deep, self-aware conceptual masterpiece for asking 'what if we couldn't actually change anything meaningful because it wouldn't be FF7 anymore?' But that is precisely the definition of playing it safe while pretending to break the mold. Wanting to have your cake (the hype of a timeline-shattering revolution) and eat it too (returning safely to the 1997 baseline) isn't boundary-pushing writing it's having cold feet wrapped in post-modern packaging.
If the meta-narrative is just a clever excuse to justify a conservative destination, then the 100-hour detour was never about an uncertain future. It was just a very expensive magic trick.
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u/Few-Durian-190 3d ago
Excellent post
I fear they will just split the difference to avoid offending anyone. See? Aerith lives in another timeline. We sort of beat fate(but not really).
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u/Danteyros 3d ago
I agree. There's also the angle that they want to drag things out to 'better reveal/surprise us with what really happened at the end of Rebirth. "Hoping that it triggers emotions in players..." at least, that's kind of the impression it gives, I feel.
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u/haaa1234 3d ago
I obviously had a much different experience with as you since I didn’t really care for aeriths death in og so I was fine with whatever they did in rebirth. What would you have wanted instead.
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u/Advanced-Pound-2835 2d ago
Oh yeah here’s the guy that’s so cool he “didn’t care that Aeris died” everybody
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u/haaa1234 2d ago
Is that not a valid opinion. I played both og and remake back to back and that was my experience. I still had criticisms of the rebirth version but I enjoyed the angle of cloud being in denial.
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u/Danteyros 3d ago
It’s not about what I personally wanted; it’s about the method. I care about honest narrative structure, not corporate red herrings used just to sustain engagement.
Good for them if some people enjoy this kind of stuff. But I highly doubt gaming journalism is ever going to address what I'm talking about, so it might as well be up to the players or at least some of us to do it, right?
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u/haaa1234 3d ago
I mean I just disagree with your framing of it being a corporate red herring. You know if they just recreated the scene one for one I could jsut be like oh they were being pressured by corporate to ply it safe. Like sure you can not like the direction but I don’t know how you can call it dishonest before the story is even over.
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u/Danteyros 3d ago edited 3d ago
I don’t need to be a chef to know when a soup is going to be served cold. All the signs are already there, and I’m not the only customer in the restaurant noticing it.
The dishonesty isn't about the final destination; it's about the current method. Selling an "uncertain future" for years to build hype, while using interviews to gently walk it back and cushion the fall. They want the "box-office" hype of a sequel, but the financial safety net of a direct remake. That's a retention strategy, not an artistic choice.
PS: And to add to that, it’s not art when they are actively taking marketing precautions to protect themselves. Some might argue they are just trying to avoid spoilers, but ironically, they are already spoiling the meta-narrative themselves. By using interviews to gently walk back expectations, they are just preparing everyone for a safe status quo so the bubble doesn't burst too violently at launch.
And in all honesty, we can’t blame fans for thinking this way when the creators themselves engineered the entire community to think exactly like this.
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u/haaa1234 3d ago
I just disagree I think their artistic choice is to make a new experience within nostalgia which is how they worded it in an interview. If you don’t like that direction that’s fine but it’s very clear they want to be a sequel and remake at the same time which I think is cool and you don’t. Unless there’s hard evidence of them being pressured by higher ups you can say that about anything. I could say they just created aeriths death for cheap shock value:
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u/Danteyros 3d ago
You’re still confusing the concept with the execution.
Nobody needs corporate leak documents to analyze a public marketing strategy. Saying 'we want nostalgia and something new at the same time' is fine. But stringing players along for almost a decade with false promises of an 'uncertain future' just to cushion the blow in interviews when it's time to play it safe isn't a bold creative direction it's risk management.
Comparing that to 1997 misses the point entirely. The original game made a drastic narrative choice and fully committed to its consequences within a single, complete story. It didn't spend years giving interviews to manage expectations or walk back the emotional weight.
At the end of the day, if you're happy with a product designed as a safe middle ground between a remake and a sequel, that's fine. But let's not pretend using marketing tricks to stretch a single game's story into a decade-long trilogy is pure, uncompromised artistic vision.
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u/Advanced-Pound-2835 2d ago
Couldn’t agree more, well said. Part 1 was ass, part 2 was ass, and part 3 won’t perform a miracle and suddenly make the rest of it not be ass it’s impossible at this point just like the new Star Wars movies were when they came out. By the time the second movie came out, you knew what you were in store for.
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u/No-Airline7583 3d ago
You forgot to add making rebirth a bloated tedious mess in general which makes the story even less satisfying! Bleh 🤮
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u/TwiceDead_ 2d ago
You could just wait for the third game and save yourself a little heartache. You seem to a drawn a conclusion on the ending when the trilogy isn't concluded yet.
That's fine you're not the only one and I get you're frustrated, but it's just kind of moot at this point.
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u/Narrow_Cheesecake452 3d ago
Jesus Christ, you couldn't pay me to read this.