Final Fantasy 7 Remake (FF7R) is finally out and I’ve had my
copy since 2nd April because of the C-Virus and my goodness what a
game. I managed to get the Platinum in about 91 hours and I still want to play
more, it’s just an incredible masterpiece that needs to be talked about. We’re
about to go deep into the Remake’s ending but I want to provide some context to
the opinions I have before I put them out there; I am 25 years old and was
brought up around Final Fantasy 7 Original (FF7), hell, I even learned how to
read a high level because of FF7. I am a huge Final Fantasy fan, I have multiple
collectors editions and I have materia tattooed on my arm. I love Final Fantasy
7.
Needless to say, there’s going to be heavy spoilers
regarding the original and the remake and we’re going to be talking about every
aspect of the ending to the remake so, you’ve been warned. FF7R is a mostly
faithful recreation of the original game until the ending chapter, so let’s
deep dive into the possibilities that the ending creates. Following the events
in the Shinra building, the team escape the headquarters building by grabbing
some vehicles and partaking in a crazy motorcycle chase. As the team reach the
end of the Midgar highway, Sephiroth appears to taunt the team. Once you
prepare and head towards the edge of the highway, the story completely deviates
from what you would expect from FF7 as Aerith explains that the ghost-like whispers
that have been interrupting main story scenes are actually Arbiters of Fate that
are creatures of the planet that preserve the flow of time. Sephiroth creates a
rift to combat the Arbiter and as Cloud marches towards the rift, Aerith stops
him and warns him that everything will change from here on. Aerith seems to change
the rift to something lighter and the team proceed onwards, once they head
through, they find themselves in a singularity. A singularity is described as a
hypothetical future point in time at which a change can result in unforeseeable
changes. This singularity is a Midgar similar to the one but just as they say
that craziness ensues! The true Arbiter of Fate is visible and the team then begin
to battle fate itself. Fate has three guardians, one that features a sword,
another with guns and another that fights with it’s fists… this may sound
familiar right? Well, according to the Access Materia, these guardians are entities
from a future timeline that manifest to fight to protect the future that gave shape
to it. It’s clear these are analogies for Cloud, Tifa and Barret but whole
whisper thing is pretty meta that we will get into shortly. As they continue to
battle fate and destroy it’s limbs, the team sees flashes of a possible future,
a future that we know from the original game as we see scenes from the original
game that were recreated in Advent Children. Once the Arbiter has been
destroyed in the most epic fight ever, we see a version of Sephiroth floating
in the sky, he then absorbs the power of the Arbiter into his Masmune to then
command the whispers. This version of Sephiroth has manifested physically and
now Cloud must take him on and destroy him. Once everything is defeated, we see
a war-torn Zack Fair, with a scene that is reminiscent of the ending of Crisis
Core, however Zack is very much alive.
I won’t go any further with the ending as there’s no reason
to. However, as a fan of the series, I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed
the ending sequence and the potential ramifications on the main scenario for
titles leading forward. With Sephiroth taking the power of fate for himself,
this can provide context for many of the games’ original scenes that find him
tailing the party and subsequently ruining their collective days. There are
many ways that this ending can be interpreted as it only poses questions, not
answers them directly. So finally, let’s see if I can provide my personal
context for the ending. The ending would indicate that from here on, we are
getting a completely unique storyline that has nothing to do with the original
but I don’t feel that’s entirely fair. The aim of this remake is to provide
context and character development where the original wasn’t able to and I feel
like giving Sephiroth this future-telling property allows us to fully
understand how he can always know where the team is and torment them. I believe
with the Arbiter gone, Sephiroth can only see potential futures, ones that now
he must chase to complete. As such he will not be completely predict the future,
this means that Cloud and the party will have to overcome and exploit this strength
and use their unpredictability to defeat Sephiroth in the finale.
People are claiming that this is going to completely change the
story, but I believe the story will continue as normal, we need to address the
Zack scene now. During this scene we see a packet fly by the screen and it
purposely slows down to reveal that the design of stamp the dog is very
different from the one that we see prominently throughout the main game. People
have interpreted this as some sort of alternate dimension that finds Zack alive,
however I find this one hard to believe. Cloud throughout the Remake has a lot of
the same character attributes from the original that are given to him by the
circumstances surrounding Zacks death. And if Zack is still alive, how can
Cloud have Angeals’ Buster Sword? The answer is simply that the ending most people
remember from Crisis Core is very different from Zacks scene in the original
game. In the original game, Zack is gunned down from behind while carrying Cloud,
similar to how we see Zack at the end of the Remake. It’s also worth noting
that in all iterations of Zacks death, it is always shown to be raining,
something that we also see during the ending cinematic. It’s very possible that
the stamp design that we see in this flashback is infact a pre-war design of
the dog.
So, let’s talk time travel, the one thing that is undeniable
about the Remake is that they have delved into time travel in some small way.
The Arbiter of Fate is a creature that completes the Planets will to keep time
flowing as it should, as the original should. The three guardians that the
Arbiter has are dead ringers for the three main party characters, Although the
flow of time may be screwed now, let’s talk about fixed points in time. We are
going to look a little into Doctor Who here, but also other narrative works that
feature time travel such as Dragon Quest XI and the Legacy of Kain series. All
of which feature complicated time travel narratives, and as the characters
continue to defy destiny and change the flow of time, they are always haunted
by fixed points in time or temporal nexuses. A point in time at which, no
matter what, could never be changed with dire consequences if such a thing
happened. So why am I excited about the Remake Part 2? Because there are multiple
fixed points in time in the original game that Remake could change and create a
much larger story. If Aerith’s death was not to happen, what would happen to
the timeline in this situation and what “dire consequences” could happen
because of this event? These are the teases that the Remake leaves us with in
it’s final moments.
With that, that is my opinion of the ending as a fan of the
series. I know everyone has their own interpretation of the ending but it has
to be noted that this is a multi-game series and we need to be patient to see the
full story through to the end before judging it harshly. Let me know what you
think of the ending over on Twitter and
you can come play games with me over at Twitch.
Comments
Post a Comment