#I'm so sorry Yuffie fans ;~; | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

icharchivist · 3 days

Note

Please answer this venting some more about ff7remake

^ you and me rn

aww <33 such a cute meme to illustrate it hi <333

Before i dive into it, a few disclaimers

-I've been fan of the franchise for over 15 years and there's definitely an aspect i'd say of having sat with the previous games for so long that there is a chance there will be bias against anything new. I try to be as objective as i can but as it's a game that means a lot to me, I doubt i would fully manage to be so

-Rumors of a Remake has been brought up ever since the release of Crisis Core because of how the mid-credit scene was adapting the beginning of the OG, and also because of test footage for a possible Remake then. And then when the Remake was announced in 2015 it really took fans by storm and we had to wait 5 more years before seeing the first part, which means a lot of hype and expectations have been built around this Remake which probably also colored the way fans will approach it.

-In the end i'm just one random fan with my own opinion and therefore this will be colored with my own feelings, and i think if people feel any other way about what i say, their own interpretation also matter, so it's a nonexhaustive aspect of all of it

-It's going to get long. In fact this whole ask is over 10.5k long. I'm so sorry.

-I'm going to spoil major aspect of the compilation, or at least won't try to dance around spoiler if i have to mention them.

-I am not touching the Yuffie DLC because i havent played it yet, and that contrary to the Remake it's not an "adaptation" of plotpoints from the OG and should be an original story and i'll judge it as such.

-It is just about Part 1 of the Remake, if i mention Rebirth i'll be vague.

Under the cut!

The Remake is based on the very first few hours of the original game, which is a very tight narrative to start with. If we follow the canon OG, it means they would have to stretch things out and pad in addition to have a proper game runtime.

As such the Remake isn't a straight adaptation of the beginning of the OG, but also will fill in with some original material. Call backs to the other game, supplementary lore, or fully new materials, as well as reworking previous scenes.

But it also includes a completely unique storyline that ends up taking center stage, and said storyline is a sequel to Advent Children. This one story therefore comes with its own problems.

Therefore there are different angles on which to judge the remake, both as an adaptation and a continuation of the franchise.

But frankly i'm allergic to the continuation aspect so bad that i can only see how it doesn't work, instead of how well the game is delivering on this scenario.

I should also mention that i started watching a cutscene movie of the remake in 2020 but stopped after the Wall Market scene because i wanted to play for myself but also was bummed by the way the plot was taking. then i started playing the game in 2021 when it released on computer and i dropped it right before Wall Market because i was seriously getting bummed out by the developments it took, and it made me disconnect with the saga for years just because i was bitter. So that also colors my vision of it that it managed to make me uninterested about a saga that's so close to my heart. I've only decided to give the game a shot again because i ended up rewatching the movie recently and was so emotional i wanted to see through with the remake.

Let's go:

First, the Good.

-The Fighting Gameplay is fantastic. It's a good middle ground between the fast paced action game and the timed turn by turn from the original. It preserves a lot of what made the fights memorable while modernizing it fantastically. In term of pure fighting gameplay, the game is a treat to play.

-Adding to it the equipments menu is a massive upgrade and you have no idea how grateful i am to be able to access each of the characters' set up and switch their materias from one chara to the next without needing them in my party. The scars of the OG are too real. Also very happy that everyone level up at the same rate even if they're not in your party for a while. The OG doesn't give exp to characters who aren't in your party when you play and if you don't switch out regularly, once the game forces you to play specific character, you run the risk of being massively underleveled. So happy the remake doesn't do that.

-The Enemies fights are fantastically adapted. In the OG because of the turn by turn format, the attacks weren't as distinctive from one another as they could be. Being able to really see how each enemies move and work was a pure treat.

-The environment design. The places are either faithfully reecreated or updated in a way that makes them very vivid and interesting. My only grip was with how bright the undercity looks on the regular, but the way to adapt it by having the brightness pushed as much as it does when the Sector 7 plate fall still made for a horrifying perspective, and i do think there's values on the aspect of putting the player in the same mentality as the people in the undercity thinking it's not so bad after all.

-Also adding in, character designs and updates have been really great and faithful to the compilation and it's a treat

-Also big mention to the new English cast that, i think, are almost all perfect replacement. Except Zack, which i think is a terrible replacement, but one miss out of all the wins is honestly not stopping it from being a plus

-Additional scenes of each characters that don't have them talking about the whole Whispers thing are usually pretty good. Barret especially gets to win a lot in personality by constantly seeing how he reacts to things. The OG didn't have as many character centric moments and it rarely shows us the intra-dynamic of the group outside of Cloud (rarely, but not never), and the remake was allowed to really allowed to bring it up a notch in a way that really makes you feel on how those characters care about one another.

-Fleshing out NPCs especially linked to the Sector 7's incident were good moves. Jessie, Biggs and Wedge taking more room in the game developping them especially with the full chapter dedicated to them was great and really allowed you to feel for the devastation of what would happen to them.

-Most of the New NPC are really cool and interesting and i'm very glad we got Andrea for instance. Linked to that, getting rid of the homophobic elements of the Honey Bee Inn to replace it with Andrea in particular genuinely healed me a little inside i think. Also i really like Roche.

-Every Turks scene are incredible as far as they're concerned. I really like the dive into their point of view and the way to prepare for their late game shift. Genuinely no complains there.

-Added quests in Sector 7 and Sector 5 to get to know both sectors. I genuinely think it's a good way to really develop an attachement to those places and the way they matter to our protagonists.

-The whole storyarc added to the Sewer and the Train Graveyard was genuinely great and served to really show how Tifa and Aerith grew closer, and ways to explore some specific character angst for both of them, and i really liked it.

-I was surprised at first but i do like replacing the climbing of the wall to reach the upper city with climbing the ruins of Sector 7 instead. It's another case of taking away a section with unique gaming mechanisms, yeah, but i also think it hits much harder and help you really sit on the devastation that occured in a way the OG couldn't show us. I think it was genuinely a good change.

-The adaptation of the infiltration by the stairs was also incredible.

-Seeing Shinra constantly trying to restart a war with Wutai and using the terrorists for this really drive home the propaganda that was in the work at Shinra and it's really neat to see.

The On-The-Fence.

-The Deep Ground stuff. Genuinely liked the first time it's quickly mentioned by the NPC, and actually connecting it to the researches around Jenova during the lab portion was interesting, but i think they kinda overplayed their hand a little.

-Everything about the lore of Avalanche outside of Barret and his crew. Having a main cell sometimes helping or not, and the Mayor being part of it, are choices i can't really say where i land on about. I found the Mayor reinterpretation fine but it came at the cost of all the gameplay that got changed because of his inclusion for example.

-The Reinterpretation of Wall Market. On one hand i do like the more flashy approach to the Market and really feeling how Corneo's fingerprints are basically everywhere. On the other i find it unsettling how "Glam" the whole approach to enter Corneo's house was. There's a huge difference between getting the help from the little folks who are ready to help you as you make your plan yourself, and having just to impress 3 of the authority of the whole town.

-The Return to Sector 7 plotline is very difficult adaptation wise for me because i think it shouldn't be there, but it's the one section of the game that really gives Barret time to shine and i really like what they do with him, and i do think it makes sense for him to want to come back and hope for the best. Barret carries this section because everything else makes it jarring.

-The Sunlamp sections to reactor 5. Way too long and overstuffed but it helps really setting up just how wasteful and hypocrite Shinra's energy use is.

-The removal of ambiguity about the action of Avalanche especially. This one is difficult to explain. Since we rarely leave Cloud's POV we don't really see if Shinra, say, provoke a bigger explosion to the Mako Reactor and then pin it on us, or if our actions genuinely hurt people. The Remake is constantly reassuring you that the worst of our actions are only because Shinra are making them worse on purpose. The OG doesn't really give you this reassuring. I'm... miffled about it because i think losing this nuance is particularly a problem for the set up of the Barret/Reeve conflict in late game, because there's never a moment Barret can just brush off they didn't do anything wrong. The question is more, are you willing to sit with the consequences of those actions, of the people who may die as you try to achieve the greater good? Which is also exactly in parallel to Reeve who, after seeing Sector 7, will be the one to kidnap Marlene to pressure Barret because, just like him, he's doing an "specific sacrifice" to stop harm from happening. But the remake constantly absolves Avalanche from any of that by making it clear it's Shinra's propaganda. And i do think it's making this plotline an injustice.... while also recognizing that perhaps it's necessary to spell out considering how otherwise people would easily side over Shinra, especially in a world post 9/11. And meanwhile this whole discussion between Barret and Reeve late in the OG might not happen at all because in Rebirth, Reeve doesn't kidnap Marlene. We're in a situation where the two men who considered maybe one sacrifice for the greater good, aren't even doing sacrifice anymore because they're too morally good for it. It cheapens their plotlines, but at the same time i don't know if i'd trust audience going into this conflict anyway. So it's difficult. It feels like the conflict was simplified and dumbed down, and i'm torn between "well it's necessary because audience needs to understand their pov" and " 'gratz on the loss of nuance everyday".

-The Further inclusion of Project G and S in the storyline when Hojo talks about it. I'm really on the fence so it's not easy to say, but i found it really jarring when Hojo mentioned them. Since the Remake itself doesn't bring much more answer as to how those Projects are implemented in the story, my memories of CC made it seem very weird. A friend told me about how it's used in Rebirth and it may be a good point but... wait and see.

-Related to that, the Mako degenerecency addition. Or more like. We knew Mako Poisoning was a thing, we knew of Project G and S Degenerecency, and it's not a stretch to think Mako will destroy its host on the long run -- but it's never been outright said in the OG nor addressed outside of CC, and i'm on the fence about how i feel about it. It seems to have a bigger part in Rebirth so i'll genuinely hold my judgement until i see what they do with it i think.

The "That could easily have been better."

-Back to Wall Market, the big de-queerification of the plotline despite the Honey Bee Inn section. The 1997 portion wasn't great sensitivity wise, but there was this clear element of how Aerith and Cloud agreed together on the crossdressing and worked their ass off specifically to cross dress Cloud together. In doing so you meet also Jules, who's a drag queen and will challenge you to a squat off in exchange of one of his wig, and you inspire the dressmaker by helping him discover he could try making dresses for other purpose than cis-women. The dressmaker find solace in the queer approach to his work. In the remake you have no mention of Jules being a drag queen even if he looks more gnc, the dressmaker just needs a reminder that girls dancing is hot to be inspired again, and Cloud crossdressing is imposed on him at the very last minute without him having prepared nor agreed with it. Andrea replacing all of the homophobic elements of the Honey Bee Inn, mainly the fact that the male hosts from it are making move on Cloud that makes him uncomfortable even if it helps for the crossdressing, and that in itself is great because Andrea ends up the mouthpiece of queer positivity replacing the most hiffy queer part of the original game. But it came at the expense of de-queering literally every single other plotlines of this part and robbing Cloud of his agency in his own crossdressing. Meanwhile to replace the quests in which Cloud is actively looking into crossdressing himself with quests in which Cloud has to prove he's the Manly Man. It's so jarring to me.

-Cloud's mental breakdowns. Hear me out. I'm a huge fan of Cloud's mental breakdown in the OG that starts pretty early. On one hand, i like some of the way they implanted more mental breakdown. The one Cloud has while Biggs talk about him being attached to his sword? amazing bit, for exemple. On the other, they really struggle with showing them in a way that's like... genuinely interesting. A lot of the early mental breakdowns in the OG usually black out the screen, pause the music, and then you only have white words showing up on the screen. The Remake cannot help but being flashy with them in a way i find particularly tacky. Re: "Back Then, i only got scrapped knees", when he falls from Mako Reactor 5. In the OG it's a reminder of when Tifa was the one who fell that day and Cloud tried to help her, fell with her, only got scrapped knees while she was in a coma, and then he was shuned out by the rest of the village because he was believed to have caused the incident, and Cloud developped his first survival guilt out of this one. When he falls in that scene, it is because Tifa was the one endangering herself to try to save him, and it flashed him back to it. In the Remake you get to see a model of him adult in a white landscape trying to talk to him, until Sephiroth hijack the whole situation and makes it about him. The whole tension is ruined like that. Likewise, when Cloud remembers Sephiroth calling himself an ancient, same "black screen, white text, no music", instead being interpreted with a weird flashback on a white background before Sephiroth hijack the scene to spell out that Cloud's fear of "being unable to save anyone" is seriously starting to eat him alive. Or how, in the whole new Deep Ground section, Cloud flashes back to when he was prisoner in a tube, and you see it clearly again. Yes it's realistic for Cloud to break down, no he doesn't break down seeing tubes in the OG, but showing flashes of him being in one is so vulgar for the audience. And meanwhile we completely lost one of the most terrifying mental breakdown Cloud has in an optional scene in the Honey Bee In where a copy of himself jumps on him to strangle him for the way he is denying the reality that's happening to him. like man. It sucks.

-Special mention to how i'm sad they removed Aerith scamming people with her flower business. Because it was always funny to me and sad not to see in the remake. At least the remake is a major step up from every single appearance of Aerith after the OG that tends to make her too pure and sweet (and i include Crisis Core in it) while in the OG she can be a menace, and the remake did manage to make her more of a menace than not, so it's nice-- but i want her to scam people. god forbid a girl does anything.

-Cloud and Choices. So i discuss about it often but in the OG during the whole first part of the game, you're often the one having to determinate how Cloud replies to some things. Said things will somewhat shape the scenario, most importantly: who are you going to go on a date with between Aerith, Tifa, Yuffie and Barret. On a metatextual level, those choices are also clearly supposed to indicate the different personas Cloud pulls off around people, in order to really have it hit home the moment he regains his memories and you can't control his words anymore.

The OG could more easily do it because the game isn't voiced, so it's easier to prepare, and the Remake couldn't do as many of those and honestly, that's fine.... the problem is how they replaced it.

Example: the Special Affection Scene with either Aerith, Tifa and Barret. The requirements for either of them is how many quests you did with Tifa on Sector 7, how many quests you did with Aerith in sector 5, who you decide to wake up first when the two of them fall in the Sewer, and if you tie or if you have less than 3 points with them you get the Barret cutscene.

... those aren't real choices to influence the cutscene imo. Except maybe the "who you wake up", just "doing sidequests or not" isn't indicative at all of who you'd have an affectionate scene with. and Barret instead is only there if you fail with them.

now, in the OG, the Barret scene does happen only if you failed with the other girls, but he actually had options giving him point too, like calling him Cloud's boyfriend when Corneo flirts with Cloud, or giving the flower to Marlene.

The Remake doesn't give you any of that. There's a fake choice in the first scene with Aerith where she gives you her flower and then you have no choice but to give it to Tifa, where in the OG you could give it to Marlene there. ok whatever.

but those are fake choices.

Likewise for the dresses: they're determined by how many quests you did, not about your actions, not about what you decide to collect, it's literally just filling a check list. and most aggravating, no matter if you do good or bad during this scene, Cloud will be picked as Corneo's lover no matter what, because he distincts himself by calling Corneo's pathetic. In the OG, if you don't crossdress Cloud in the perfect outfit, one of the girls get picked instead.

And it feels so.... anti-game in a sense? why do you remove anything that had the player interreact with the story in some way? or more like, if it was to be replaced why give conditions this lackluster?

this is maybe a nippick and all and it could be dealt with, but considering the thematic linked to Cloud and choices and persona this feels like such a lackluster way to replace it.

-Weird timing with some of Cloud's flashbacks? It bothered me but it might be nippicky. But we regularly see Cloud flashes back to when Tifa was a kid, which i believe he shouldn't (reason in a further down section). The only one that is important is the promise under the stars one, but they moved it to be triggered on Cloud when he's out with Jessie and the gang, while in the OG this scene is triggered after Tifa tries to remind Cloud of it, and it's because they have a conversation about it that we get to relive it with Cloud. I think it's a problem because it makes Cloud the one who initiates remembering those instead of Tifa, which is a problem to commit to the gaslight storyline with Sephiroth, when Sephiroth will manage to convince Cloud he never existed by cornering Tifa into saying she doesn't remember Cloud in one of his biggest memories. Because as long as the only flashback is one prompted by Tifa, you can argue that it's Tifa who plants the idea in Cloud's mind and therefore maybe Sephiroth is right. But the more Cloud remembers things unprompted to himself, the more you'd question Sephiroth's manipulation since "well no it doesn't make any sense if Cloud remembers things like that on his own."

-Reeve was great but showing Cait Sith early was a mistake and i think this set up is going to influence Rebirth in a bad way

The Bad

-The Padding. That's the core of all the problems of the game is that they wanted desperately to extend the runtime and therefore would use any excuses to make you waste time. Some exploration can be great, but eventually you'll really feel it when scenes start to seriously stretch out

-The Removal of puzzles and exploration in order to constantly guide you from one battle to the next and one cutscene to the next, and eventually very long mini game. It's probably hard to explain but it became very jarring to me. The OG kinda have you doing things yourself, and everything i can think of were replaced by very vulgar "quests to cross" type. Like Cloud's dress in Wall Market depends on how many quests you've done which are unrelated to how Andrea sees Cloud, while in the OG you have to find each pieces of the perfect dress on your own, make individual decisions for each of the piece and hoping it works in the end.

The Integrality of the Shinra's exploration puzzle were replaced as well to instead focus on cutscenes with exposition. The archives are supposed to be a puzzle game to get a password from the mayor to get to the next level. In the remake, the Mayor gives you an extended cutscene to say he's on your side and gives you a key to move forward and he tells you to talk to another Avalanche helper. You're supposed to overhear people talk about "last time i was in the bathroom i swear i could hear voices" to figure out you can infiltrate the vents to eardrops on the meeting. The Remake just downright tells you to go to the vent, but only after you proved you can fight. And even there rather than telling you to look for something, there's always clear quest markers to guide you, you dont need to think. After a while the game just gives up with adapting the others floor, including the elaborate puzzle where you have to sneak into a vent maze to get into locked rooms.

Instead they give an extended Lab Dungeon that doesn't exist in the main game, that is very weird from Hojo at this point, and for the "puzzle" it is, the characters are always telling you what to do and it's mostly finding ways to open door in very easy way to get to more fights. There's no intentions of genuinely having you work out how to play. Meanwhile instead the mini games take too long and are often just new mechanisms for one scene and then you move out. I like the mini games, but the balance has been very jarring to me. That said this is colored by the fact i'm playing the pc-port with keyboard+mouse and the port itself hasn't been well optimized for the mini games making them a lot more frustrating than they would be on controller.

I think it's wild also that for a game desperate to pad its runtimes, it refuses to let you just get lost into a puzzle to, yknow, lose time.

-The Fear of Committing to the Fucked Up aspect of the game. The major problem i have with that is that the remake specifically set up how those elements could become even more Fucked Up, and then genuinely refusing to follow through with them. No one you know survive Sector 7's fall of the plate. Jessie, Biggs, Wedge, they all die miserably at the pillar, and everyone you've met at Sector 7 don't seem to survive. The Remake develops all of this in a way that it will make it devastating to experience... and then they pull back at the last minute. Actually everyone you met and who mattered are fine.

Sephiroth's massacre of the Shinra's Lab Floor that covered everything with trails of blood are replaced by the fact Jenova is in a remove area only Hojo accesses to, and so the trail is just Jenova's purple goop and Sephiroth probably didn't murder anyone (other than the president) this time. Lol. Lmao even. Adding to prev point, the discovery of Jenova having been taken away was totally anticlimactic compared to the way the OG delivers on it, because of the muted music, lack of build off, and refusal to show the death that surrounds her tube.

Present Shinra gets an extended scene to shame Barret and then when Sephiroth stabs him, he only leaks black mist, compared to the team going to the President Office to see he has been impaled. The Hell House, that haunts you in the Collapsed Sector, is now a thrilling action piece of a show. Cloud's most fucked up breakdown (seen above) is removed.

Hojo's plans to force Aerith to breed with Nanaki to experiment on their offsprings that would live for a long period of time thanks to the length of Nanaki's species' lifespan, is replaced instead with Hojo talking about breeding her with human experiments who are degenerating because of the Jenova cells, because it's not about the lifespan anymore but just having many experiments in case Aerith dies. Still fucked up and all, and it can work out fine, but it's still the remake getting cold feet about the bestiality aspect, and therefore Nanaki's introduction has to be different from when he just happened to be in the same cage as Aerith. It just constantly pulls back from going all in when it can afford it. the Train Graveyard is the only place they really are allowed to show fear, but even there it's more creepy than the majorly unsettling set pieces.

And i heard it happened in Rebirth too, where the whole haunted section with monsters being people who were experimented on to an horrifying degree and you are the ones who have to put those living people down, be replaced by a full VR experience.

Like, i think pulling away from one of them wouldn't be so bad - i'm like, also willing to hear the bestiality replacement point for example, but when it's a pattern like this it starts just to cheapen every scenes that have a punch into it.

-speaking of i hated the speech President Shinra gives Barret and the whole "you only care about clearing your name, not about making things better for Midgar". in the OG there IS an aspect of Barret's desire to save the planet being a selfish wish for revenge. He cares for the planet yes, but this revenge is what he holds on to to cope with the guilt of having believed in Shinra once. Still his desire to save the planet is real, and he does actually want to dismantle Shinra no matter what. This aspect of his character is what creates a conflict with Reeve later on, and it's where the conflict shines well because we have two morally ambiguous characters having to come to term with why they want to make the world better and what are they actually willing to sacrifice for this. This Discussion with Reeve later on doesn't really pick a side (even though later in the game Reeve will do everything to help the gang and fully switches side), but it's two sympathetic characters who are trying to make the world a better place who come to a clash because of the different motivation and willingness to commit.

Having Barret run in about clearing Avalanche name, which i don't recall him being that dedicated about doing in the OG (if only because the propaganda was less pointed to because of what will be my next point), is the thing that allows the President to have a gotcha and point out that Barret had no long term plan to help people and he was a scam, and that the president might be a bad person but at least he thinks about it.

I really hate it because if it's about outlining that Barret is more in for revenge than for ecology, it's giving President Shinra, a one dimensional villain, the benefit of having the upper hand on Barret. And Barret is left speechless because he lets this guilt settles in, rather than how he fights for his own POV against Reeve later.

It's like they're trying to prepare the Barret/Reeve conflict but the way they went at it was leaning too hard on letting the President have his moment, while also framing Barret as much more selfish as even his dreams of revenge from the OG let him be.

and at the same time it's weird in the remake because the remake goes hard on how much Barret is into Planetology, much more than the OG, so the guy has done his researches and has invested a lot more into ecology for it to just be a selfish barging.

And like i mentioned, this whole scene doesn't exist in the OG because we have an earlier confrontation to the President when we get arrested and Barret is mostly still mad at him for having killed his friends, not for how they're being framed, and the president is so one dimensional villain he barely invest himself in this conversation, and the next thing we see, the president is dead. They made the President more cunning in the Remake which i don't /mind/ (it helps setting up the kind of person Rufus is without having to expose that Rufus will bring a real shift to Shinra's policies, by having his father already show you what Rufus may have been raised into thinking, which means that Rufus' appearance can only be about vibes and threats without needing to expose who he is, especially this late into the remake), but by allowing him to be alive in this situation it ended up being a terrible look on Barret on something that isn't an issue in the OG.

-The whole arc between Sector 7's fall and running to Shinra to save Aerith. This one is a doozy. Everything they had added up to this point had at least a good reason to be there for the timing of all things. Like the Jessie chapter happened at night on a point in the OG where nothing happens between two big plot point, it fits organically, it's nice.

But this one really had me annoyed because i think the previous arc extended even more on why Tifa and Barret would jump right away into wanting to rescue Aerith like in the OG, but instead this is the moment the two of them pull back from going to help Aerith so instead they can focus on totally new plotlines.

On paper i don't mind the idea of them going to Sector 7 in the hope to find people who survived it, because i do think they would need this closure. In the OG there's no secret passage under the doors of the sector though, so they don't have any means to get back to the Sector. I get it in term of characters' motivation, but it also somehow manage to put the tight plot into a halt.

Now it takes them a few days to think about saving Aerith, because first we need to be reassured everyone who matters in Sector 7 is fine, saving Wedge, discovering more Deep Grounds, having Cloud has new "i shouldn't be there" flashbacks, and then doing all sort of missions for people in the aftermath of the fall of the plate, until having to help Leslie on a whole sidequest for him to tell us how to climb the wall. All of which are interesting ideas on paper but i think ends up padding the time so badly it ends up frustrating and removing completely the urgency of "Aerith was taken as a lab rat because she tried so save a stranger".

And this arc births the problem i was mentioning in my prev point that therefore the trio remains in the slums for at least two days of hearing Shinra's propaganda and the way they frame Avalanche in the way that cause Barret to be so upset it's the thing he challenges the President about, while in the OG he's still mourning first, the anger is due to the loss and grief, not on how his friends are remembered.

Actually i think that sums up a lot of the problem with the Remake when it comes to the thematic of grief, which in the OG is about how you have to accept this grief as a part of yourself because else you're going to lose yourself to its stages (and Barret therefore is kind of more this representation of the anger side of grief, compared to Cloud being stuck on denial) , and instead changing it more on "how you are remembered", either by denying the death from happening at all, or having Barret just wanting that the way his friends are remembered in death to be honorable.

-The Hojo Lab Arc. Boy is this one ways too long. Clearly wanting to compensate for the Shinra's floor that has been removed by giving this sort of exploration episode in the unsettling Jenova/Deep Ground's lab. On one hand, the atmosphere for this is chilling (at first) and it does make sense to move Jenova in a more secret floor room.

But the gameplay ended up being lackluster, just going from one obvious step to the other with the characters repeating to you want to do, only so you can get into fights, and i can think of like ONE moment that was genuinely scary, but the rest was really just.... the most padding things could get.

I also think it lampshade Hojo as a villain too much this early into the game. Also while i'm at it i hate that Hojo remembers Cloud in this timeline now. I think Hojo's disinterest for failed experiments meaning he wouldn't even consider Cloud noteworthy is an interesting way to build tension, and i hate that Hojo is aware of things and now is just maniacally playing his cards for now just for fun to see what Sephiroth will do next. Hojo is a very interesting antagonist, and while i do think he would love to commit unethical experiments with however he meets, this whole sequence was too much. Also the fact he mostly "tests" the gang by having them fight advanced weapons and like a couple monsters that happened to escape, it kinda takes away from the mad scientific vibe when he's just trying his new toys, rather than actively trying to do something more interesting and fucked up. They frame it as him wanting data on Cloud knowing he's been experimented on, but again, i don't like that he knows that, but also i think those tests weren't exactly interestings for this exact data either. and meanwhile showing him actively letting Sephiroth get away remove any type of possible tension about where Hojo stands in this whole company.

but yeah the Labs could have been a great concept but it took the most boring way to execute it and instead it just felt like dragging.

The Terrible

-No respect for the mysteries of the saga. Everything that the OG built a mystery around is spoiled in the Remake, or teased in flashforward. This is so aggravating to me.

Like, it feels to me that the devs were so convinced the game will be played by people who played the OG, or who would play the OG for themselves, that they did not bother with keeping any of them out. Sephiroth keeps popping off being more ominous than he should be. The mention of Zack gives Cloud a mental breakdown so much so they mute Aerith to really point out that something weird is going on with Cloud and Aerith's ex, compared to how in the OG Aerith just don't originally mention him and when the name Zack is finally uttered, Cloud is too far in denial to connect anything at this point.

Cait Sith coming on the scene of Sector 7, while not linking him to Reeve yet (but i heard Rebirth jumped into doing so right away), therefore setting up that Cait Sith has at least an emotional reason to be joining the crew, therefore setting up the plotline once you have everyone in your party about how there's a mole in your group into making sure the players have suspicions about Cait Sith to start with.

Zack appearing in the ending of the game, showing he's close to Cloud, showing he has Cloud's sword, totally exposing the existence of this character while he is a mystery the whole game.

Hojo telling Cloud he was never in Soldier, Cloud getting recognized in Shinra HQ by people who therefore confirm he once existed, Cloud flashbacks about being experimented on....

All new stuff that instead of working as foreshadowing end up lampshading things that should have been more quiet mysteries, element to explore later on.

There's also so many "spelling the lore out in the remake way earlier than in the OG" like having a whole Shinra propaganda room about them looking for The Ancients' secret while if i recall correctly, this was a secret endeavor only revealed further into the game.

And then the flash forward, especially in the last part of the game but not only. Cloud having a flash forward to the plate falling. To Aerith's dying. Literally showing the intro of Advent Children as the future they're trying to avoid to tease Meteor, Aerith's death, Cloud fighting Sephiroth.... and Nanaki running in a world post-civilization centuries later? this one is the most bewildering one to me because this specific scene should mean nothing to the characters about what the future has in store for them, but they played it up because it only matters if YOU know the saga. God this part was annoying to me.

I feel like the game is expecting so much that the player has played the OG that they're just begging them to tune in for part 2 because things might be different this time since we have NEW mysteries to worry about now! Will the horrors happen? teee hee who knows!

and for new players, it's confusing, but it also ends on "we're not following the OG anyway" so you kinda just have to stick with part 2 when it comes out instead.

i find it so aggravating and it takes me out of the story every single time. It's like none of the mysteries matter to be treated seriously for someone who might discover the saga.

But it therefore also comes at the price of completely ruining some characters' motivation.

Speaking of.

-Sephiroth.

Now to start with something positive, this Sephiroth is supposed to come from the Advent Children timeline, and on that regard, he's beautifully characterized. Yes, Sephiroth in Advent Children would be saying those things. Yes, he would try new ways to torment Cloud, yes he would play his cards differently, yes he would be hyper homoerotic and want Cloud by his side more than ever. All of that tracks very well with his character by Advent Children time.

.... glad to see new audience will never know how Sephiroth was before that then???

Sephiroth has one of the greatest villain built up in video games because of how slow burn his appearance is. First you hear about him in a flashback in good light, then you hear his name in a second flashback but this time in horror. Then Cloud collapse with a memory of Sephiroth, and then when they go to rescue Aerith they get to escape because the floor they were on has been massacred by Sephiroth, Jenova is gone, and the president has been found impaled on Sephiroth's sword. Cloud and Tifa react in horror as people who know Sephiroth, and then you have to escape, and once outside of Midgar, they will start discussing "what's up with Sephiroth actually"

and then once you're at Kalm, Cloud will give you an extended flashback of the Nibelheim incident with Sephiroth as a playable unit and you see he's mad strong. You try to pass through the cavern guarded by a Midgar Zolom which will be your first terrifying boss experience because of how hard it is to beat, only to pass this by stealth to see Sephiroth just empaled one before you. AND THEN you go to Junon where Sephiroth is rumored to have been and once on the boat going to the Costa Del Sol, you will run into him. Cloud will challenge him, and Sephiroth will barely recognize him, and then let them fight a bodypart of Jenova. And it's only from this point on that Sephiroth will seriously start to pay attention to the crew and will slowly but surely try to manipulate Cloud, developping an obsession toward him.

the Remake ends when you leave Midgar. So Sephiroth shouldn't have appeared. And clearly the Remake was scared that not showing the fan favorite will cause problem, so they justified a way to have Sephiroth into the story early by having him be late-development Sephiroth.

which just means that if you haven't played the OG, you're getting a wrong impression of Sephiroth and the way he specifically approached Cloud. As well as completely missing out on the slow built of his capabilities.

But if you have played the OG you therefore get to really notice how he hijacks scene and therefore change them into things they're not. I hate his appearance in Cloud and Aerith's first meeting, completely changing the mood of this scene to make it all about him. I hate that everytime Cloud has a mental breakdown, Sephiroth appears to take advantage of him.

AC!Sephiroth would! but this is a horrible way to build him for a first time audience, and it's so vulgar in the way it spells things out for him.

And you know he's going to play his cards differently because of how he lost the previous time; For example in the Rebirth trailers they did the whole marketting around Sephiorth wanting Cloud to doubt Tifa, saying about how she shouldn't be alive and will manipulate Cloud. It's a direct response to the fact that neglecting to take into account Tifa is what caused Sephiroth downfall because she was the only person who knew Cloud so intimately that she was able to guide him through his memories, thanks to how much Cloud trusted her. Sephiroth, therefore, logically, need to make sure Tifa is not going to get in the way this time.

.... and that's swell and it makes sense but we're getting a whole other story aren't we?

The remake was adverticized as a remake and instead a huge chunk of it hinges on the fact you know the saga and because of Sephiroth and the characters knowing Fate is oncoming, it's actually a sequel.

And it's deeply frustrating to play because aside from Sephiroth and Aerith, no one knows what the previous timeline was. (coming back on Aerith in a bit). All of the cast suddenly is working to change a fate they do not even know about because Sephiroth and Aerith want to challenge this fate.

As a player it removes you from fully connect with the story because the characters don't even know what they're fighting for!! They don't have the context of what the bad things are going to be!

And like okay you either like it or you don't, but personally i hate it a lot.

-Desamorcing any emotional scene by the new mysteries.

The remake wants you to be invested in the new mysteries around Sephiroth and the Whispers so bad that scenes get to be completely hijacked by those characters ruining the tension any scene is supposed to build in.

Cloud and Aerith first meeting is supposed to be a quiet scene as he runs into her after the Reactor exploded. You can also completely ignore her and she'll move on, but otherwise it's a really quiet and simple scene. The Remake builds a whole Cloud hallucinate Sephiroth scene out of it, has Aerith tormented by the Whispers, she approaches Cloud to thank him, and Sephiroth will appear to threaten Cloud about how he intends to let fate repeat, implying the threat of killing her. The whole sweet scene starting of to establish a dynamic between those two? had the focus changed on Sephiroth instead to be ominous.

Fighting Reno in the church is a good addition and all, but Cloud trying to murder him only so the Whispers can come and take him away so the whole "escaping the Church" bit is all about the Whispers? You had a good tension over two characters physically interreacting and you had to ruin it.

And the worst for me was really the whole Sector 7 incident, constantly seeing the whispers just to stop us from getting to the pillar, seeing the whispers everytime one of the Avalanche Three is having a big moment just so you can then see them as they make sure they die. Scenes that should be about Cloud and Tifa realizing they are losing people they're caring about, Cloud starting to have his whole "i can't save anyone" panic settles in, and it ends up being distracted by the Whispers doing their things and making it look like the only reason those characters die is because it's meant to be, not because yknow, they got killed?

Oh and Hojo recognizing Cloud and the Specters taking him away was so damn bad too.

It's like. Any scene that are trying to build a tension, perhaps even a good one!! suddenly gets ruined by the whole "let's keep things on track" antagonist. Scenes that would have emotionally hit hard instead becomes confusing because of a whole new plotline that only works on a meta textual level. Embarrassing as hell.

-Zack. Why would you do that. Why would you show Zack why would you create a whole alternative timeline.

oh, well, i know why. Zack is too popular not to and you gotta include him. But the fact Zack is a neat character because of how much you can feel his absence when you know why it is there, the way they just dangled him in front of our face is so insulting, especially as being the scene right before our heroes go to defeat fate. It's something that only matter to hardcore fans, who would also be fans because of how Zack haunts the narrative, and so now instead we get an alternative timeline story that would be all swell and game in fanfictions, but is bond to be confusing for non-fans, and just really antithetical to what made Zack so beloved to start with.

Every Zack fan i've talked with after the remake did that had the same reaction of being both happy he lived, and then "but what the fuck are they doing with that". It's a mystery, a zinger for the next game, to try to keep you invested

... but it feels cowardly, as well as the Sephiroth stuff feel cowardly. It feels like the game had no confidence in it doing well without fan favorites, and therefore included them in the game no matter what, even if it defies why they are fan favorite to start with.

-The Fate plotline. I've been rambling over this one a lot at this point so i don't know what much to say. I hate that the Remake is a story about defying fate. About how things are not written in stone and all of that. I feel like the game is basically in denial of the original game if only to lure the player into this state of denial. And it could work to mirror how Cloud will go through his journey, considering the OG is a lot about grief and Cloud is specifically about the harmful aspect of denial, but i think this is imposing ways too much metatextual commentary over the actual text to the point you're denaturing what the story was about.

At the end of the game, everyone have to accept together to change fate, a fate they know nothing about, a fate they just imagine could be bad. the PLAYER knows what they're talking about, but them, themselves, do not. At this point the characters don't really react out of their own arc and motivation, but on about trying to change an abstract idea they have no idea about.

Except for Aerith who knows about stuff in the future and is so determined to not let it be set in stone, Sephiroth who is implied to come from the AC timeline and wants to do things differently, and Nanaki who understands the Whispers and knows vaguely what to expect.

In a bitter way it puts any hardcore fan who expected to replay the plot of the OG in the position of the bad guy for implying that changes are wrong, actually, regardless of why fans would think this way.

To me, it's antithetical to the plot of the OG. Final fantasy manages to do stories about fate, FF15 is a great story about not being able to defy fate, Crisis Core COULD have been a story about fate due to its ending but it decided not to be, but the OG was not about fate in any way and pushing this as the core theme feels alien to the story.

The characters barely know what it's about aside from out of context flash forward and are supposed to make their stand to correct this.

Meanwhile the story also goes into so many loops to try to make you curious about the Whispers, or the way they fix the timeline, like when they save Barret's life, but everything is artificially contrived for my taste and every single scenes with the Whispers made me wish i had never been hype about this whole project to start with.

-Aerith and Nanaki becoming dev's mouthpieces at the expense of their own character arc. There are many scenes when those two will suddenly stop in their track just to do exposition dump about fate and destiny.

Nanaki is noteworthy because legit 80% of his dialogues are about Fate and Destiny, and his introduction to the squad literally had to rely on Aerith showing him a glimpse of the other timeline so he knows they're supposed to be friend, which is infuriating to think about. Because Nanaki developping a natural friendship with the gang is too much to imagine i guess. For a story about defying fate they sure make sure you know Nanaki only is talking with you because Fate told him so.

Meanwhile for Aerith it's so.... So much to me because at some point it's like her being a character stops and suddenly she ends up discussing exactly how there's a fate in front of them that will be scary to change. She wants to change it because of her own fate into it, but also fear changing it and all of that...

Which plagues Aerith with worries she didn't have at first, which means that for a bit, Aerith stops being her own character on her way to her character arc because she needs to look straight at the audience to explain them the themes of the story in case they didn't catch it up. It is so sloppy to me and i hate the idea of turning Aerith's gradual arc of reconnecting with her heritage and realizing she's the only one who can change something, into one where she's already wise and having it all figured out.

I saw someone comment on how Rebirth feels like a 5D Chess game between Sephiroth and Aerith both trying to change fate in their favor, but while i love their natural antagonistic dynamic, it genuinely bugs me how their independant actions are taking a cosmic weight right from the start of the remake. The more Sephiroth pulls in one direction the more Aerith is pulling on the other, and this natural nemesis relation where Aerith is constantly trying to one up Sephiroth and the other way around took a much bigger dimension now that Sephiroth comes from the Future and Aerith is aware of Fate.

-"Tee Hee Maybe They Won't Die :3c"

It's the frustrating aftereffect of destroying the keeper of fate, is that now the game is showing you a timeline in which Zack is alive, and is trying to act like "maybe Aerith won't die this time". Which feels cruel to me because either they go through with it and keep them both alive and we removed all the stakes from this story or why the game has a lot to say about grief, or they go through with it and they specifically manifactured a way to raise our hopes up for the sake of wanting to see them again.

Aerith and Zack are easily my favorite characters with Cloud, i've read countless of Fix It fanfic, AU where they come back, i know this denial, this desire they'll be okay.

and i know i don't want it from the main game because their death matters too much for what the story is trying to tell.

Zack needs to die for Cloud to even become who he becomes. Without his death, Sephiroth won't be able to manipulate Cloud properly. It's the reveal that Cloud has usurped Zack's life that will lead Cloud to the pure mental collapse that will have him give Meteor to Sephiroth and Sephiroth would trigger the apocalypse. Grieving Zack is a major element to explain the lowest of lows in Cloud's life.

The alternative timeline therefore lose those stakes, and may instead try to prove that Zack has to die else bad things will happen. After all, Cloud doesn't wake up in this timeline, so clearly Zack being alive means his own timeline may get unlucky as it goes.

Meanwhile Aerith's death is necessary for the powerstruggle between Sephiroth and Aerith, with the fact that by killing her, Sephiroth actually made her more powerful.

Sephiroth decides to kill Aerith because her power as the last of the Ancients and the Holy Materia are the only things that can reach out to the power of the Planet to counter everything Sephiroth wants to do. The moment he realizes She is the Menace, he will use Cloud to try to kill her, and when Cloud breaks the mind control, Sephiroth kills her himself. That way he ultimately have two birds one stone by both getting rid of Aerith and being able to break Cloud's mind and make him his and therefore getting Meteor.

But since Aerith was deep into a ritual and when she died she returned to the Lifestream, she managed to keep doing what she was doing from the otherside, more powerful than ever, and it's why the ending is as it is, with Aerith unleashing the lifestream as a way to shield the world from the fall of Meteor.

Aerith's death is essential to how to stop Sephiroth, on the aspect of, by killing her, Sephiroth dug his own grave.

But now what? Either they're keeping her alive and the 3rd part of the game will go in a complete different direction, or they'll kill her still after having raised people hope that she may survive.

-So the saga is setting itself at ending on a totally different note as the OG, at some point it will have to stop trying to adapt the OG at all because it completely went off rail... Or things will go back on rail and we've been played all along.

So yeah it's either the remake will follow through with the major plot beats and will therefore betrays its own new themes because turns out you can't win without following fate after all, or it will go completely off the rail and it will just Not Be The Plot Of The Original Game.

I'm sure we can try to see it as a sequel, i'm sure some people may be able to, but the more i get reminded of how close it is to the OG the more the things that go off rail just feel out of place, because it clashes with the themes of the OG.

I can't enjoy the fully new "sequel stuff" because it's always coupled with a reminder of the OG i love and this sequel just seems wrong there.

-It feels unfinished. And despite all of this, the game doesn't feel finished. You may add as many stories you want to give meat for the game to keep going, but ultimately you just barely introduced the concept and the characters since you legit only adapted the prologue, you left mysteries opened that are not being answered to keep people on a hook, but you end the game basically feeling you just started this trip. After a 60h+ long experience at least, you are left on a cliffhanger telling you to tune in next time.

This was always going to be the risk by cutting the game in part and even more so when the part one decided to only be about Midgar. I mentioned how i think the remake could narratively have tried to push to Junon since it would have ended with a battle with Sephiroth like they wanted.

but by finishing the Prologue, seems just seem rushed, nothing is finished, and there's a lot of plots that open at the end of the game. Like Rufus, for example, who is one of the major antagonist of the game, who can only come last minute. And because he comes in this late to the game, you can't actually have him explain what he's going to do as the antagonist. So he's just there for the vibes and it feel slike a weird addition that is just a cliffhanger for what's to come.

-"If you want to play the plot of the OG you just need to replay the OG or Ever Crisis"

Then you shouldn't have called the game a remake.

^ this is something a dev said btw and it still annoys me to this day. then you should have been transparent about it not being a remake. And saying that if people want to replay the OG they should play Ever Crisis, which is a GACHA live service game that will inevitably be unplugged one day because Square Enix doesn't have a good track record with taking care of their gacha (starting by what happened to the First Soldier, which was closed after one year of service), genuinely made me annoyed.

All in all, in the end, i'll take their word for this because it sure means i have no reason to be interested in the remake. So i will replay the OG instead.

And then they weep when Rebirth do less sales than the Remake. Lol. Lmao even.

But also just this mentality saddens me. Many people won't try the OG because it looks and feels old. It's a great game, but when the rest of the saga has only HD elements, it's difficult to get into or recommend. That's why people wanted a remake. Just being dismissive about it seems sad to me.

DEEP SIGHS.

CONCLUSION.

I didn't come to the remake wanting to hate it. In fact at first i really tried to rationalize everything it was building itself for.

But i powered through the remake more and more irritated and the irritating part took over all of the way i could interreact with the remake.

And the game isn't even that bad. It still genuinely feels like you return to the characters you know and love. I spent more hours having fun than i've had not having fun.

but the problem is that the good things are in the details and in the small interractions here and there, and that the flaws are the Major Plot Elements that you genuinely can't ignore.

And i'm torn, because i love those characters and want to see more, and the gameplay is so fun!

But by the time of the Ending of the Remake, i was just genuinely tired. Like the whole ending portion of the Remake broke me a little because no matter how in character Sephiroth is compared to his AC self, no matter how fun and camp the scenes are in isolation: this is still such a shitty choice to make about the thing that was called a remake.

I'm sure i've forgotten things despite how long this ask is. but yeah. That should be a good run down of my problems with the game.

..... sorry if you expected anything shorter. Turns out it just ended up being a good opportunity to sort out my thoughts and well. well....

Anyway hope you had a good read if you read all of it, and take care o7

#ichareply #pinkwesker #ichafantalks ffvii #ichablogging ffviirg #ichasalty

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silver-wield · 4 years

Text

Fan fiction dork is back again. This is long.

"No!"

The flat refusal made Aerith pull a face and roll her eyes. "Such a mood." She turned towards Tifa, stationed over by the grill and asked, "How do you put up with him?"

Tifa glanced up, a questioning look on her face. "Huh?" Her gaze went from Aerith to Cloud, who had his arms folded and was staring at her like he expected back up. She shrugged one shoulder and went back to staring at the burgers sizzling away. "He's got his charm," she replied in a light voice.

When Aerith glanced at Cloud she caught the tail end of a smug smile. "You're so easily pleased when you wanna be," she teased, poking his bicep.

Cloud leaned away and scowled. "Is there a reason you're here?"

Aerith's eyes widened. "Wow, rude." She looked around the new Seventh Heaven and smiled. The people of sector seven really loved Tifa. They rebuilt the whole bar by the time the group returned to Midgar. Even better, they added a daytime cafe where Aerith could help out and spend time with her bestie. "I'm here to collect on a date," she said with an evil grin.

Cloud choked and turned to look at Tifa. "What!?"

Aerith would've bet all the flowers in her garden that he was hoping she hadn't heard that. Letting him hang in suspense for a moment longer than she had to, she finally put Cloud out of his misery by saying, "Tifa and I have a date in sector eight later." She was evilly amused at the sigh of relief from him. Leaning closer and ignoring how he moved away, she added, "Did you forget I have a boyfriend? Zack doesn't like you enough to share." She giggled when she spotted Cloud's face turning red.

"Quit it!" He got up and went to sit at the counter.

He's such a kid. Aerith shook her head and smiled fondly at his back.

Tifa looked over her shoulder and smiled at him. "You okay?"

"I've been better," he replied, shooting Aerith a dirty look.

Tifa sighed. "Can I trust you two to play nice while I call everyone in?"

"Tifa--!" Cloud pouted.

"Sure thing!" Aerith waved Tifa's concerns away.

"Great. Be right back." With a friendly nod, Tifa swiftly plated the food, set it on the counter ready for pick up, and came through the swing door. On her way out, she paused beside Cloud and laid her hand on his back. "Be nice," she whispered in his ear in a teasing tone.

"I'm doing my best," he replied, a small smile appearing and disappearing like lightning. With Tifa so near, Cloud took the chance to sneak a swift kiss on her cheek, leaving her blushing and biting her lip.

"Be right back," she repeated in a soft voice, before jogging out of the bar.

Aerith clasped her hands together. "You two are so adorable!"

Cloud pulled a face and rolled his eyes.

"I told you she was someone special," she went on.

"You want a medal?" he asked, half joking.

"You got a medal?"

"Nope." He got up and started moving plates to a long table set up that morning.

Aerith watched him move with methodical precision. Even a casual black t-shirt and blue shorts couldn't hide his natural grace. Nothing Cloud did was without purpose. He used words sparingly before he was himself again, but Aerith half-expected him to become more chatty afterwards. She hadn't realised Cloud was Cloud, just a little less moody, more obviously kinder and even more stupidly in love with Tifa. She supposed that kindness was the reason she and Zack survived in the end, despite what she did to fate. She wanted him to live so badly, she defied the will of the planet. But, as she said to Cloud that night in her dream, everyone dies eventually. Whether she and Zack have years, months, weeks, days or less together before that happens, they still have so many moments more than what they did before. She was more happy now than she can remember being in her entire life. She has a life and can laugh with the people she loves. She has friends and Zack. She has Cloud and everyone else to thank for it. Tears gathered in her eyes and she swiftly brushed them away.

Not swiftly enough.

"You good?" Cloud paused between the bar and table.

Aerith gave him a bright smile. "Sure am!"

He raised a doubtful eyebrow, but didn't pry further.

Aerith ducked her head and laughed to herself. Cloud never cared enough about her to want to dig deeper. And she never trusted him enough to want to share. Not like Zack. That was who she'd been so desperate to see in him when they first met, but it was all too obvious she was deluding herself when the way he acted wasn't anything like Zack. Not deep down, anyway. A few similar poses, a uniform and mako infused eyes didn't turn Cloud into her one true love. She flushed with guilt and shame thinking about the way she acted. Did I ever apologise for that? "You know, Cloud," she began, finding she couldn't look at him.

"Yeah, I know Cloud," he said, stopping a foot away from her and crossing his arms.

When Aerith looked up she saw a friendly smile on his face. She laughed and shook her head. "I'm sorry."

Cloud frowned. "For what?"

"For not being all that nice to you when we first met." She pulled on her bangs, using the physical pain as a focus. "I was...trying to make you someone you weren't. Someone you could never be."

"S'alright," he replied, shrugging it off. "I was, too."

Aerith looked at him then and nodded. "Yeah, I guess you were." She laughed. They both missed Zack so much they fooled themselves. But now they didn't need to because he was here. Alive. With them.

Cloud nodded. "So, we good?" He turned to grab the last of the plates.

Aerith felt lighter. "Yeah. We're good."

"I spy an angel." Zack greeted Aerith with a broad smile as he entered the bar, using the shirt he held to wipe his sweaty face. "You should have joined us, Cloud. Barret kicked the ball at Red, so he burst it with his tail!" He laughed and shook his head.

"Maybe later," Cloud replied, shrugging. Exercising in hot weather reminded him of pointless drills Heidigger made the grunts do until they dropped.

"What? Not a fan of team sports?" Zack headed straight for Aerith and squatted a little. He tapped a finger to his cheek and said, "To the victor goes the spoils."

Aerith laughed and put her hands on her hips. "Oh, I'm a prize now, am I?"

He turned his head to meet her eyes. "Absolutely, yes."

Cloud snorted and turned his back on them, muttering, "Weirdos."

Aerith giggled and playfully pushed Zack. "Oh, you!" As Zack rocked backwards Aerith grabbed his hand and pulled him to her. She wrapped both arms around his waist and hugged him tight. "Ew, you're all sweaty."

"Ah, sorry," he said, stroking her hair. "It's really hot out today. You guys made the smart choice staying inside." He tried to untangle her from him, but she held on tighter.

"It's okay," she buried her face against his bare chest, "I don't mind."

Zack kissed the top of her head.

Tifa re-entered the bar, followed by Barret, who had Marlene on his shoulder, Red, Yuffie, Cid, Vincent, Biggs and Wedge, who carried Cait Sith. "Great, everyone's getting along," she said, smiling at Cloud.

"You were only gone five minutes," he replied, a smile tweaking one corner of his mouth up. "How much trouble do you think I can get into?"

She leaned forward and smiled. "Lots."

Barret let out a gut busting laugh. "She's gotcha there!" He jiggled Marlene until she giggled. "Right, baby?"

"Uh huh, yeah!" Marlene nodded and wagged a finger at Cloud. "You're trouble, so you gotta let Tifa look after you!"

Cloud nodded, a serious look on his face. "Yes, ma'am."

Marlene giggled and Tifa smiled.

"Why's this boy such a goddamn fool, would someone tell me that?" Cid barged past everyone and took a seat at the table. "Well, we eatin' or not?" He slapped a hand on the tabletop.

Tifa looked flustered for a moment, then saw the food laid out ready.

"Maybe if the rest of you losers get to the table!" Yuffie mocked from her seat.

Zack's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "When did she--?" He stepped back from Aerith and put his shirt on, much to her disappointment.

"Ninja!" Yuffie gave him a finger gun salute and winked.

"Okay, everyone, let's sit down and eat before the food gets cold." Tifa urged with a cheerful smile.

"You know I don't need to eat," Vincent muttered, though he sat anyway.

"I appreciate the adaptation," Red said, perching on a footstool.

"You guys are family, and family eats together," Marlene said, wagging a finger at them both.

"You heard her, and nobody argues with Marlene," Biggs said, taking a seat beside her.

"I'm starving! If Vinny doesn't wanna eat I'll have his!" Wedge gave Vincent a huge smile.

"That's not my--"

"He'll still do it," Cloud said, interrupting him.

"Aww, thanks for sticking up for me, bro." Wedge targeted Cloud with an even larger smile.

Cloud gestured at him and said, "See?"

Vincent snorted, but pushed his plate over to Wedge.

"Okay, who wants drinks?" Tifa moved to stand behind the bar and grabbed a cocktail shaker.

"Ooh, can you teach me how to make something?" Aerith bounced up from beside Zack and darted over to Tifa.

"Uh, sure, I guess." Tifa smiled and nodded. "What do you want to drink?"

"Can you make a pink one?" Zack asked, turning in his seat and resting his forearm on the back.

"Pink isn't a flavour," Cloud joked, also turning around. His gaze locked with Tifa's. "Something sweet?"

"Oh, how about grapefruit!?" Aerith bounced on her toes.

Tifa looked at Aerith and tipped her head to one side. "But...that's not sweet?"

"I didn't ask for sweet, he did." She grinned and jabbed a thumb over her shoulder towards Cloud.

"Aerith likes drinks with a kick." Zack frowned thoughtfully. "Pineapple?"

Aerith clapped her hands together. "Yes!" She half turned and blew Zack a kiss. "You know me so well."

Zack looked stupidly pleased at her praise.

"Can y'all hurry it up. Feels like you're taking forever for just one drink." Barret gestured as he spoke. "People dyin' of thirst over here."

"Ah, sorry!" Tifa ducked her head.

Cloud got up. "I'll give you a hand." As he walked towards the swing door separating the front of the bar from the back, he said over his shoulder, "Beer good for everybody?" It's what they'd get even if they said no. A round of murmurs had him nodding.

"And juice for the kids," Cid added. "Two cups."

"Hey! I'm not a kid!" Yuffie huffed and crossed her arms.

"You're pouting like one." Biggs reached across the table to poke her cheek. "You look twelve."

Yuffie leaned back and stuck her tongue out at him.

Biggs chuckled. "And now you look like a ten year old."

As those around the table laughed, bickered and joked, Cloud moved around them and placed drinks within reach. He then went back to the bar, where Tifa, Aerith and Zack were still discussing cocktail combinations that included a bunch of fruit he'd never heard of. He felt like he couldn't contribute, so sat and watched Tifa. A slap on the back jolted him from his thoughts and he automatically scowled at the culprit.

"Woah, what'd I ever do to you?" Zack acted hurt, then chuckled. "Looks like you had something important on your mind," he said in a low voice. "Wanna talk?"

Cloud grimaced and half-turned away from the girls, just in case Tifa overheard. "Not really."

Zack put his hands on his hips and laughed. "You know, for a minute there I thought you changed, but I guess you'll always be the same Cloud." He ruffled Cloud's hair until Cloud slapped his hand away.

"Cut it out. It's not like that," he said, glancing at Tifa again.

"What?" Zack laid a hand on Cloud's shoulder. "Trouble in paradise?" He put on his best confidant expression. "Need some dating advice?"

Cloud shook his head and replied in a low voice, "It's been three months since, you know..."

"Sephiroth found his promised land, Jenova dissolved and we won it all?" Zack said this in a light tone, but tears still gathered at the corner of his eyes. The Sephiroth he knew wasn't the one Cloud hated for so long. He couldn't feel victorious about losing a good friend. Though that friend seemed lost for a long time, at the very end Sephiroth smiled like the man Zack remembered. He found himself again, and peace. Angeal and Genesis better be looking out for you over there. He blinked away the tears and focused on Cloud. "Yeah, so...?"

Cloud drew in a deep breath and let it out. "So, how long is long enough?"

Zack frowned. "For what?" He tried not to think too far ahead. Aerith already explained the planet could take them both back at any time, so he lived from moment to moment, never taking anything for granted. He had a home in sector five with Aerith and Elmyra, friends, his life and the freedom to choose what he wanted to do with the time he had. He was overflowing with gratitude and good cheer. And he'd promised some of that time would be spent helping Cloud not be such an insecure dork around the love of his life. Three months of dating and he still thinks she isn't as crazy about him as he is her. Zack wished Cloud could see the look on Tifa's face whenever he wasn't paying attention to her, scant as those moments were. It made Zack feel like a voyeur, and Aerith laughed hysterically when he said it because she felt the same.

Cloud sighed again. "Forget it."

"Has anyone ever told you that you think too much?" He patted Cloud on the back.

"No, Aerith, wait, the lid isn't--!"

Too late. Aerith turned the blender on and pink liquid sprayed up in an impressive geiser, tossing lumps of fruit in its wake.

"Tifa!" Cloud vaulted the bar and tried to get her out of the way.

Tifa cringed and tried to duck, but somehow both ended up covered, despite Cloud blocking the worst of it.

"Oops!" Aerith put her hands up and shrugged. Despite being the one to turn the blender on, she didn't have a speck of drink on her pink top or white skirt. She shot Zack a split second wink and he smothered a laugh.

"That's one way to help," he said to her in a low voice.

Cloud scowled to himself, then looked at Tifa. "You okay?"

She tried not to smile at how the juice flattened his hair. Reaching slowly, she picked a piece of pineapple clinging to his cheek and put it on the side. "Yeah, thanks."

Cloud stared into her eyes until they were all he could see. "Tifa, I--"

"You guys okay?" Wedge half rose from his seat before Barret and Biggs shoved him back down.

"Dummy!" Cait Sith hopped onto the table and hit him with its megaphone.

"Ow! Hey, what did I do!?" The ow was for show, Wedge had an indestructible body thanks to Hojo's "helpful" interference after he fell from the Shinra building. He was lucky to be more than a splat on the sidewalk, but that didn't make him grateful to the monster who made him.

"Gonna need to go wash up," Barret said to Tifa and Cloud. "Don't worry about us, we'll be fine by ourselves for a bit."

"Yeah," Aerith added, circling around them both and pushing them towards the stairs. "Better get that out of your hair before you have to cut it off."

Tifa drew in a sharp breath. "Right." She stopped and looked at the mess behind them. "What about--?"

"Don't worry about the bar."

"We got this!"

Zack and Biggs gave her a thumbs up.

Tifa looked at Cloud, who looked bemused. "Uh, okay, I guess. We'll be right back."

"Take your time!" Yuffie and Aerith said in unison. They looked at each other and giggled.

"What are they laughing about?" Cloud crossed his arms and tried not to drip too much as he and Tifa stood in the hallway outside the bathroom. He tried not to assume it was him, but old habits died hard.

"Hmm? I'm not sure." Tifa shrugged. She knew exactly what they were laughing at, but she didn't want to say and risk her face looking like a tomato. "Do you want to go first or should I?"

"You go, I'll wait out here."

Though they'd spent the night together before the final battle, they hadn't actually repeated it since. Maybe neither of them expected to survive, so if one night was all they got they'd make the most of it. But, they had won. They saved the planet and everyone got to go home. Together. Cloud kept up his merc work alongside Zack. The pair were almost too popular, and Cloud regularly finished his day emptying his pockets of scrap paper that had hastily written phone numbers scrawled on them. He pushed the pile across the bar and Tifa had the bin already waiting on her side. He always finished up by asking her to go somewhere with him.

Dates were fun and had no theme. Just the two of them wandering Midgar or going out on his custom bike the seller named Fenrir and Cloud developed a habit of treating like a treasured pet. The guy got a lifetime supply of food and drink from Seventh Heaven in exchange when gil alone wouldn't persuade him to sell. Tifa couldn't refuse when she saw the look of longing on Cloud's face. He had so little joy in his life until recently, there was no way she'd be responsible for taking any of it away.

The first time Cloud took her out on Fenrir, showing off and doing insane moves, it made her heart race with excitement. She locked her arms around his waist and laid her cheek against his back. She trusted him to keep her safe. She whooped and laughed, which encouraged him to show off even more. It was fun. When he eventually pulled up on a ridge overlooking Midgar, Tifa swung herself round to sit facing him. The look of adorable, wide eyed surprise made her beam. This was the Cloud she remembered best. Her Cloud. She leaned forward the same moment he reached for her. Their kiss, sweet and electrifying, left them both breathless and resting their foreheads against each other.

Coming out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel after a hasty shower, Tifa smiled at the sight of Cloud leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He had his eyes closed, so she could look her fill, though she could still feel a blush heating her cheeks.

"You done?"

Tifa jumped. Does he know?

Cloud opened his eyes, glanced at her, then smiled and looked away. "Can I get in there now?"

"Uh, yeah." Tifa tucked a strand of wet hair behind her ear.

Cloud pushed away from the wall and she tried not to smile at the drink stain he left behind. He thinks he's so cool. But, she found her feet stuck to the floor as he moved closer. Her eyes lowered from his face, which didn't improve anything because it drew her attention to his loose limbed walked instead. She swallowed and glanced at him through her lashes.

Cloud stopped with an inch of space between them. "Can I...get by?"

Flustered, Tifa realised she was blocking the door. "Oh!" About to step away, she caught sight of a teasingly smug smile on Cloud's face. She stopped and smiled back. "I dunno, can you?"

This time, Cloud swallowed. A slow blush lit his cheeks before he looked away. "You're dripping on the floor," he mumbled, pointing to the small pool spreading around Tifa's feet.

"And you're all sticky," she replied, gesturing at the patch on the wall.

Cloud glanced at the wall, then her and back again. "Uhh..."

Tifa ducked her head and laughed. Cloud never could keep up the bravado for long. She preferred his sweetness, anyway.

Surprising her by clasping her upper arms, Cloud gently urged Tifa aside while holding her gaze. His head darted forward and he stole a swift kiss before releasing her and heading into the bathroom. "Be right back."

Tifa licked her lips and tasted something sweet. "Uh, sure," she replied in a faint voice.

Was three months a long time to date before taking the next step? Tifa hadn't thought about it. She'd never dated before. Not really. Cloud lived at Seventh Heaven with her, but they had separate rooms. After the first time, she hadn't wanted him to think she was easy, or she expected anything from him. She didn't want him to feel pressured to move faster than he was ready for. Or maybe she was just scared. She didn't want to push for more in case he suddenly left. What if he didn't really feel the same way?

"You're a coward." Tifa sighed and stared out of the window. She'd changed into an aqua coloured dress and left her hair loose so it could dry. Thanks to the heat it almost was. "Why can't you just ask him?" She glared accusingly at the washed out reflection of herself framed in the window pane.

"Ask who what?" Cloud appeared behind her, dressed in a white t-shirt and shorts and roughly drying his hair with a towel. The gravity defying spikes were already rearranging to stick up in his signature style. When she didn't answer, he stopped and stared, then swiped a finger along her upper arm.

Tifa turned, eyes widening as he put it to his lips.

"Punch," he said, referring to the sticky drink residue.

"Oh." Tifa laughed. "Guess I missed a spot." She tried to hold onto the playful mood, but worry made her frown. "So, I guess everyone's leaving soon." She crossed her arms under her breasts and tried to smile. "They couldn't stick around forever, right? Cid and Yuffie have homes that aren't here. Nanaki, too. Barret wants to rebuild Corel, so I guess he'll be gone for awhile. It'll be quiet."

"Hmm." Cloud tipped his head to the side. "Not that quiet. Marlene'll need looking after and there's still Biggs, Wedge and Vincent." He paused and added, "And did you forget about Zack and Aerith? You really think it'll be quiet with them around?"

Tifa shook her head and smiled. "Guess not." She looked up at him. "I guess...I just hate goodbyes."

"It won't be for good. They'll come back and visit."

She couldn't help but look at him with hopeful eyes. "You think?"

Cloud swallowed and nodded. "Yeah."

She nodded, but grew apprehensive as she asked, "And you?"

Cloud frowned. "What about me?" He took a step closer. "I live here. With you."

"Yeah, we're neighbours again," she joked, referring to their separate rooms. Though, right then, Cloud was in her room and came in as though it belonged to him. She hadn't noticed, but he did that a lot.

"Don't have to be." His eyes were earnest and hopeful. He took another step, then waited, leaving her to close the remaining distance between them. "Tifa...You don't have to be afraid. I'm not leaving." He smiled and added, "So, suck it up."

Tifa ducked her head and laughed. "Did I really say that?" She walked towards him and he was already opening his arms to draw her in.

"Yup." Pressing his face against her neck he mumbled, "Scared the shit out of me. Don't go places I can't follow, okay?"

Tifa got the sense he meant emotionally, since there wasn't any place he couldn't find her if he wanted to. Oh. She wrapped her arms around his neck, threading her fingers through his hair. "I won't," she promised. Feeling daring, she kissed his cheek, then whispered in his ear, "You wanna sleep in here tonight?"

For once, Cloud one-upped her into speechlessness when he replied, "Every night." Moving to press a kiss to her lips, he added in a murmur, "But, can we save the sleeping for later? There's something else I've been waiting for first..."

As night drew in and the guests of Seventh Heaven cleared out calling goodnight to each other and still passing jokes back and forth, Aerith slotted her arm through Zack's and snuggled into his side. "So?" She looked up at him, a huge smile on her face and her eyes shining like emeralds.

Zack chuckled and tapped her on the nose. "Good job today! Mission success!"

Aerith giggled. "Those two." She mock sighed and shook her head. She stopped suddenly and pulled a face. "I didn't get my date with Tifa!" She growled with disappointment, making her sound like Red. "Cloud better appreciate this!"

Zack laughed. "Oh, I guarantee he does."

Aerith shook her head. "You perv."

He pointed at himself, then her. "If I'm one, so are you. It wasn't me who said those two need to stop overthinking things and just do it."

Aerith squealed and laughed. "Don't say it like that! People will send us to jail!"

Zack wrapped both arms around her waist and picked her up. "Wherever we go, it'll be together, so that's fine by me!"

Linking her fingers behind his neck, Aerith urged Zack to lower her enough so she could kiss him. "Yeah," she agreed, coming up for air and trying not to blush. "We're together and that's all that matters." She hugged him tight. "Let's go home. Mom's probably waiting up to give you a lecture."

Zack chuckled. "I'll win her over some day."

Aerith nodded. "Yeah, you will."

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