Final Fantasy VII: Remake (III) | Rebirth | Revelation (PC/PS5/XSX/NSW2) - 2027

[Melena]

The Cactuar Smash mini game for Aerith drove me insane. I legit gave up and will do later, I read it becomes easier if you have Transcendence from Folio, which I have almost obtained.

I did this last night and full cleared at over 2900 points on my first try

Yuffie took me two tries to just reach rank 1 on the other cactuar game

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[Kanriel]

I was okay with the ending just believing

Spoiler: show

They really wanted to make this game (rebirth) about Aerith. So all the Sector 7 stuff, and Cloud seeing her during the sendoff, was just to help build up her story. Ignore the R3verse stuff of it all.

I think this is a big part of why I'm pretty positive about the ending.

Spoiler: show

I'm not looking to dissect every little scene and detail. What truly occurred is effectively the same thing as the original game at this point. We're the same place we "should" be. And we are even at a point where people are theorycrafting about Aerith being "saved" for part 3, just like there were always those rumors about being able to save Aerith in the original. IMO, they did this exceptionally well, I'm just not going to dwell on every little thing. I'll wait for some theorycrafters to toss together some interesting videos to watch about it all and let that be it.

Though sorta on that note, a Queen's Blood/endgame 'lore' question/discussion:

Spoiler: show

So the Shadowblood queen is almost certainly Jenova, yeah? And then the Emerald Queen is likely...Minerva? I didn't actually play anything other than direct FF7 OG/Remake/Rebirth, so I don't know a lot about that, but from what I'm seeing basically the original 'war for the planet' had Jenova, possibly of the Gi? vs the Cetra led by Minerva, and so the current war is Sephiroth, of Jenova lineage, vs Aerith, of Cetran lineage. And Cloud becomes the centerpiece because he is of Jenova but if he swaps sides that tilts the war.

One thing I'm wondering though is...what if Jenova also has cetran lineage? What if Jenova is the daughter of a Cetran and the Gi, which gave her the powers of the lifestream, but also tagged her as not of the planet? That would roughly explain everything, yeah? Would explain why she can keep pestering things and makes her truly one of a kind.

[bori]

I did this last night and full cleared at over 2900 points on my first try

Yuffie took me two tries to just reach rank 1 on the other cactuar game

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk

I honestly am probably doing it completely wrong or maybe have the wrong setup. Doesn't help Aerith's ATB is so slow though.

[Melena]

I honestly am probably doing it completely wrong or maybe have the wrong setup. Doesn't help Aerith's ATB is so slow though.

First group was light week so I ran up, dropped the light debuff field and spammed attack till I had a bar and aoe nuked with sorceress storm.

Basically just wash, rinse, repeat that throughout, alternating debuff fields for every wave.

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[Drai]

I honestly am probably doing it completely wrong or maybe have the wrong setup. Doesn't help Aerith's ATB is so slow though.

Sorceress' Storm and Transcendence for the Gigantaurs is mostly what I did, and then just melee for the regular green ones.

[arus2001]

Spoiler: show

So the Shadowblood queen is almost certainly Jenova, yeah? And then the Emerald Queen is likely...Minerva? I didn't actually play anything other than direct FF7 OG/Remake/Rebirth, so I don't know a lot about that, but from what I'm seeing basically the original 'war for the planet' had Jenova, possibly of the Gi? vs the Cetra led by Minerva, and so the current war is Sephiroth, of Jenova lineage, vs Aerith, of Cetran lineage. And Cloud becomes the centerpiece because he is of Jenova but if he swaps sides that tilts the war.

One thing I'm wondering though is...what if Jenova also has cetran lineage? What if Jenova is the daughter of a Cetran and the Gi, which gave her the powers of the lifestream, but also tagged her as not of the planet? That would roughly explain everything, yeah? Would explain why she can keep pestering things and makes her truly one of a kind.

More OG context, but spoiling just because...

Spoiler: show

Unless Rebirth changed lore I haven't seen yet, Jenova was an alien that crashed into the planet at the Northern Crater and murdered most of the Ancients before she was stopped 2000 years prior to the game. What Ancients that remained eventually devolved into normal humans over that span with Aerith's mom being the last full-blood.

[Kanriel]

More OG context, but spoiling just because...

Spoiler: show

Unless Rebirth changed lore I haven't seen yet, Jenova was an alien that crashed into the planet at the Northern Crater and murdered most of the Ancients before she was stopped 2000 years prior to the game. What Ancients that remained eventually devolved into normal humans over that span with Aerith's mom being the last full-blood.

And spoiling because of the Rebirth story:

Spoiler: show

Yes, I know that of Jenova, but they changed the backstory of the Gi so that they are not "of the planet", and while Gi Nattak is not the most reliable source, says the Cetra are not a "tolerant people", so maybe Gi + Cetra had some intermingling, spawned who became Jenova/Shadowblood queen and kicked all this off. This isn't technically a huge retcon since Jenova would still be "a calamity of the skies" especially in regards to how simple explanations of old mythology/history often goes. So the "real history" would be the Gi tribe crash land in the North, this damage causes massive issues for the planet, the Gi just want to live, the Cetra go to "deal with the incursion" and start a war with the Gi tribe, with the Cetra looking like aggressors to the Gi tribe. This war goes on for a while, eventually you have your Romeo and Juliet nonsense, which spawns a "chosen one", Jenova.

[Odesseiron]

Not related to any spoilers, there's so many good music tracks in this, but if I were to pick one of the top 3 songs it would easily be Regina's theme on the Shinra-8 when you play her. I could listen to that shit all day.

[Andalusian girls]

as an aside have to say i appreciate u suckas, research + Unicorn Overlord have swallowed up most of my vidya time so am slooowwlyyy working my way through Rebirth, only Chapter 5 currently, and it is kind of all to be so diligent about using spoilers for all the big stuff

[Odesseiron]

Also I think I've been thinking about it. I think this game is by far one of the industry's over the top, lavish, over exaggerated, self-indulgent, AAA big budget games that just fully embraces what it is without apologizing with all the weird stuff that's in it, that I've ever seen. And i love it.

I cannot give the devs enough credit here, even if the ending isn't all that great.

The amount of work that went into this game is fucking insane. They could have done a cash grab, which I'm sure people will say breaking it into 3 games is, but man if it wasn't, there is no way this game would be whatever it is.

[Obsidian]

So I'm way behind everybody, but I just got to the Golden Saucer for the first time. Two things:

1)

Spoiler: show

Why the hell is that first Duo fight the hardest out of the entire batch? Those fucking dogs and birds just bumrush you and stunlock you to death. Jesus.

And 2)

Spoiler: show

I'm assuming the rest of Corel opens up at some point during/after the Gold Saucer part? Because I got that "you won't be able to return for a while" message when I got on the tram but I still have towers and Johhny's sidequest to finish and it didn't seem like I had access to the areas I needed to go for those.

[Kanriel]

So I'm way behind everybody, but I just got to the Golden Saucer for the first time. Two things:

1)

Spoiler: show

Why the hell is that first Duo fight the hardest out of the entire batch? Those fucking dogs and birds just bumrush you and stunlock you to death. Jesus.

And 2)

Spoiler: show

I'm assuming the rest of Corel opens up at some point during/after the Gold Saucer part? Because I got that "you won't be able to return for a while" message when I got on the tram but I still have towers and Johhny's sidequest to finish and it didn't seem like I had access to the areas I needed to go for those.

#1 is just kinda what it is, for #2:

Spoiler: show

Yeah rest of Corel unlocks after you get out of Saucer, it should be relatively obvious why once you get there.

[Anoat]

Finished, totaled 117 hours on this playthrough. It was a lot of fun. Lowlights of the game were any time I was forced to use Cait Sith or Aerith solo, fuck that. Highlights were almost everything else. I haven’t read through people’s discourse on the ending yet but I enjoyed it.

[Anoat]

Also I got Tifa as my gold saucer date YEAH BABY

I did go back after and watch the date with Yuffie and it is ADORABLE. I’ll probably just look up the others on YouTube though.

[Drai]

halfway through my hard mode playthrough, so far all the required fights are melting thanks to Gotterdammerung and Tifa fucking kicking everything to death lol

[Kaslo]

One thing I noticed while doing the final boss, Cait Sith's Moogle will continue to DPS after Cait Sith dies. That's freaking great lol

[Anoat]

Alright without reading other's lore bombs here is my interpretation on the ending and where it might go from here. Mega spoilers, obviously.

Spoiler: show

So first, to reiterate for a lot of people that seem to have forgotten, the "Sephiroth" we are seeing in Remake and Rebirth is Jenova. Sephiroth himself is still trapped in ice in the Northern Crater and will stay there until Cloud shows gives him the Black Materia in part 3. You might see me say Sephiroth and Jenova here interchangeably, but the villian we are dealing with in these thus far is 100% Jenova. It looks like there are multiple "versions" of Whispers now. The grey ones, "Arbiters of Fate" that we destroyed at the end of Remake seem to be the kind that are preserving things as they should have canonically happened in OG FF7. The white versions seem to be servants of the Planet and do whatever is necessary to protect it. The black versions seem to be pawns of Jenova to do her bidding. At some point (possibly the ending of Advent Children), Aerith and Sephiroth/Jenova became aware of the existence of multiple parallel worlds and Jenova is trying to undo her destruction and merge ALL the worlds. (Gilgamesh, known for being a realm traveler having such a big role in Rebirth is no coincidence, imo). Aerith in Remake seems to have complete knowledge of what is going to happen up until the end when the grey whispers are defeated, at this point she loses that knowledge. At some point she seems to have shared this power with Marlene who also seems to know certain things that "should" happen. Rebirth follows the plot of OG FF7 relatively faithful up until near the end where Aerith and Cloud seem to plunge into the void. They then wake up in their bodies in the alternate Zack world, as evidenced by the same Stamp appearing here as Zack's previous scenes. Meanwhile Zack is stuck debating whether to save Biggs, confront Hojo, or stay with Aerith. We get glimpses showing the outcomes in each scenario being a different world, evidenced by the Stamp in the Biggs' scenario being a THIRD variant. In the Forgotten City, Jenova uses the fake black materia to open the gates and worlds begin to merge, so Aerith is killed but she is also saved, and Cloud flashes between them multiple times. However in the world of Rebirth, she is definitely killed. Her white materia drops into the water just as it did in OG FF7. But Cloud, whether he realizes it or not, is now in possession of the white materia from the Aerith of Zack's world. Zack is able to hop between worlds momentarily to help Cloud fight Jenova. Aerith from the Zack world helps Cloud fight "Sephiroth" in the final battle, as he departs the worlds begin to separate once again and Zack is returned to his world, while Zack's Aerith vanishes and Cloud is returned to the Rebirth world. Cloud continues to phase between his world and the alternate world, evidenced by him seeing Aerith and the rifts in the sky while no one else does. Meanwhile Cloud is now in possession of the *real* black materia, and Jenova is still manipulating him into delivering to Sephiroth in the Northern Continent.

Rufus is aware, at least by the end, that Lodbrok is Jenova/Sephiroth and Shinra has been manipulated into war with Wutai yet again. Not much idea on Viceroy Sarouf, but if he was indeed an ex-SOLDIER as Yuffie said he has been injected with Jenova cells and can assumed to also be a Jenova puppet. Hojo seems to just want to turn everyone into a Jenova puppet to see if his mad theories come true, and by the final game he'll probably inject himself with Jenova cells to become a puppet himself. I'm expecting a Shinra/Wutai war to be a big part of part 3.

I get why some people might be apprehensive about the whispers taking a large role here as more Nomura nonsense but it didn't bother me here. As apposed to the ending of Remake, where my mind was full of fuck because of all the new possibilities being introduced here, I was able to follow the ending of Rebirth a lot easier with the added context.

[chazzyphizzle]

hojo is an awful character. not that he was much better in the original but god he is just the worst, mustache twirling lame fuck

[Koul]

Alright without reading other's lore bombs here is my interpretation on the ending and where it might go from here. Mega spoilers, obviously.

Spoiler: show

So first, to reiterate for a lot of people that seem to have forgotten, the "Sephiroth" we are seeing in Remake and Rebirth is Jenova. Sephiroth himself is still trapped in ice in the Northern Crater and will stay there until Cloud shows gives him the Black Materia in part 3. You might see me say Sephiroth and Jenova here interchangeably, but the villian we are dealing with in these thus far is 100% Jenova. It looks like there are multiple "versions" of Whispers now. The grey ones, "Arbiters of Fate" that we destroyed at the end of Remake seem to be the kind that are preserving things as they should have canonically happened in OG FF7. The white versions seem to be servants of the Planet and do whatever is necessary to protect it. The black versions seem to be pawns of Jenova to do her bidding. At some point (possibly the ending of Advent Children), Aerith and Sephiroth/Jenova became aware of the existence of multiple parallel worlds and Jenova is trying to undo her destruction and merge ALL the worlds. (Gilgamesh, known for being a realm traveler having such a big role in Rebirth is no coincidence, imo). Aerith in Remake seems to have complete knowledge of what is going to happen up until the end when the grey whispers are defeated, at this point she loses that knowledge. At some point she seems to have shared this power with Marlene who also seems to know certain things that "should" happen. Rebirth follows the plot of OG FF7 relatively faithful up until near the end where Aerith and Cloud seem to plunge into the void. They then wake up in their bodies in the alternate Zack world, as evidenced by the same Stamp appearing here as Zack's previous scenes. Meanwhile Zack is stuck debating whether to save Biggs, confront Hojo, or stay with Aerith. We get glimpses showing the outcomes in each scenario being a different world, evidenced by the Stamp in the Biggs' scenario being a THIRD variant. In the Forgotten City, Jenova uses the fake black materia to open the gates and worlds begin to merge, so Aerith is killed but she is also saved, and Cloud flashes between them multiple times. However in the world of Rebirth, she is definitely killed. Her white materia drops into the water just as it did in OG FF7. But Cloud, whether he realizes it or not, is now in possession of the white materia from the Aerith of Zack's world. Zack is able to hop between worlds momentarily to help Cloud fight Jenova. Aerith from the Zack world helps Cloud fight "Sephiroth" in the final battle, as he departs the worlds begin to separate once again and Zack is returned to his world, while Zack's Aerith vanishes and Cloud is returned to the Rebirth world. Cloud continues to phase between his world and the alternate world, evidenced by him seeing Aerith and the rifts in the sky while no one else does. Meanwhile Cloud is now in possession of the *real* black materia, and Jenova is still manipulating him into delivering to Sephiroth in the Northern Continent.

Rufus is aware, at least by the end, that Lodbrok is Jenova/Sephiroth and Shinra has been manipulated into war with Wutai yet again. Not much idea on Viceroy Sarouf, but if he was indeed an ex-SOLDIER as Yuffie said he has been injected with Jenova cells and can assumed to also be a Jenova puppet. Hojo seems to just want to turn everyone into a Jenova puppet to see if his mad theories come true, and by the final game he'll probably inject himself with Jenova cells to become a puppet himself. I'm expecting a Shinra/Wutai war to be a big part of part 3.

I get why some people might be apprehensive about the whispers taking a large role here as more Nomura nonsense but it didn't bother me here. As apposed to the ending of Remake, where my mind was full of fuck because of all the new possibilities being introduced here, I was able to follow the ending of Rebirth a lot easier with the added context.

This helps me cope with all the changes, so thank you.

Spoiler: show

I can't really stand multiverse shit, it's just way too disorienting for me but that made it more palatable

[Kaslo]

Alright without reading other's lore bombs here is my interpretation on the ending and where it might go from here. Mega spoilers, obviously.

Spoiler: show

So first, to reiterate for a lot of people that seem to have forgotten, the "Sephiroth" we are seeing in Remake and Rebirth is Jenova. Sephiroth himself is still trapped in ice in the Northern Crater and will stay there until Cloud shows gives him the Black Materia in part 3. You might see me say Sephiroth and Jenova here interchangeably, but the villian we are dealing with in these thus far is 100% Jenova. It looks like there are multiple "versions" of Whispers now. The grey ones, "Arbiters of Fate" that we destroyed at the end of Remake seem to be the kind that are preserving things as they should have canonically happened in OG FF7. The white versions seem to be servants of the Planet and do whatever is necessary to protect it. The black versions seem to be pawns of Jenova to do her bidding. At some point (possibly the ending of Advent Children), Aerith and Sephiroth/Jenova became aware of the existence of multiple parallel worlds and Jenova is trying to undo her destruction and merge ALL the worlds. (Gilgamesh, known for being a realm traveler having such a big role in Rebirth is no coincidence, imo). Aerith in Remake seems to have complete knowledge of what is going to happen up until the end when the grey whispers are defeated, at this point she loses that knowledge. At some point she seems to have shared this power with Marlene who also seems to know certain things that "should" happen. Rebirth follows the plot of OG FF7 relatively faithful up until near the end where Aerith and Cloud seem to plunge into the void. They then wake up in their bodies in the alternate Zack world, as evidenced by the same Stamp appearing here as Zack's previous scenes. Meanwhile Zack is stuck debating whether to save Biggs, confront Hojo, or stay with Aerith. We get glimpses showing the outcomes in each scenario being a different world, evidenced by the Stamp in the Biggs' scenario being a THIRD variant. In the Forgotten City, Jenova uses the fake black materia to open the gates and worlds begin to merge, so Aerith is killed but she is also saved, and Cloud flashes between them multiple times. However in the world of Rebirth, she is definitely killed. Her white materia drops into the water just as it did in OG FF7. But Cloud, whether he realizes it or not, is now in possession of the white materia from the Aerith of Zack's world. Zack is able to hop between worlds momentarily to help Cloud fight Jenova. Aerith from the Zack world helps Cloud fight "Sephiroth" in the final battle, as he departs the worlds begin to separate once again and Zack is returned to his world, while Zack's Aerith vanishes and Cloud is returned to the Rebirth world. Cloud continues to phase between his world and the alternate world, evidenced by him seeing Aerith and the rifts in the sky while no one else does. Meanwhile Cloud is now in possession of the *real* black materia, and Jenova is still manipulating him into delivering to Sephiroth in the Northern Continent.

Rufus is aware, at least by the end, that Lodbrok is Jenova/Sephiroth and Shinra has been manipulated into war with Wutai yet again. Not much idea on Viceroy Sarouf, but if he was indeed an ex-SOLDIER as Yuffie said he has been injected with Jenova cells and can assumed to also be a Jenova puppet. Hojo seems to just want to turn everyone into a Jenova puppet to see if his mad theories come true, and by the final game he'll probably inject himself with Jenova cells to become a puppet himself. I'm expecting a Shinra/Wutai war to be a big part of part 3.

I get why some people might be apprehensive about the whispers taking a large role here as more Nomura nonsense but it didn't bother me here. As apposed to the ending of Remake, where my mind was full of fuck because of all the new possibilities being introduced here, I was able to follow the ending of Rebirth a lot easier with the added context.

Something also worth noting

Spoiler: show

Aerith refers to the Midgar area as a "Homecoming" which is used throughout the game to mean returning to the lifestream, so I have to assume these dying worlds are held together in a pocket dimension in the lifestream. Maybe something like the end of time area of Loki with all the different versions of Loki.