When someone is a notorious villain that has achieved such infamy that they even appeared in a Super Smash Bros game, then you know they’re not exactly of great moral standing. Yet the ending of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth made me agree with Sephiroth and now I’m sitting here wondering if I’m an awful human being. Thanks, Square Enix.
This is a character that murders people without the slightest thought of ‘Oh I wonder if they had a loving partner and children at home’, he wouldn’t revisit the scene of the crime purposefully, he’d forget where the crime scene was. Yet now I’m the person sitting there saying: “Hang on… He might have a bit of a point here.”
As the great Johnny Cash once sang: “What have I become? My sweetest friend…” although I suspect the rest of the lyric isn’t: “I agree with Sephiroth, on this one thing, ‘till the end.”
Right, that’s enough self-pity to make myself seem like a good human being, yes Sephiroth does make a good point at the end of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Actually, no, it’s more than that. I want part of his plan to succeed. No, I’m not going to call a meteor to try and take over Power Up Gaming, my methods of subterfuge are far more subtle.
Reunion? I don’t know if this is just the poison talking, but I agree!
It’s his point about the reunion of the worlds, I would prefer that to succeed. Now I realise this rules me out of ever getting a review copy of any Marvel game but I generally don’t like multiple concurrent universes as a plot device. I just find it kills my suspension of disbelief, to keep track of one world that’s fine. Two worlds are also alright, given that I engage with fantasy worlds and I also engage with my social world. Three can be a bit of a struggle though, basically what I’m trying to say is that I’m too poor to afford a house that has a basement.
Yet it is really hard to keep up when you have so many alternating worlds that are ostensibly fairly similar, when you’re shifting the narrative between worlds it has to be pretty obvious. Now Rebirth does this well, until the end. I watched a video from Final Fantasy Union on YouTube and I was laughing throughout because I didn’t clock so much of what was happening while I was playing.
Wait, how did that make sense again?
To preface this paragraph, I am a dog person – or at least I was until I was until it died. Now I just don’t have a dog. Anyway, to a lesser degree in Remake and more so at the end of Rebirth, the game expects you to keep track of exactly what Stamp looks like. Now he is a promotional dog character that Final Fantasy Nestlé Shinra uses in the games, but it is the sign the game has to indicate different universes as each one designs him as a different breed.
If Stamp was as frequent as even someone like Kyrie, it might be easier to remember. It would be great if there were an actual dog that appeared in quests that was the mascot representing Stamp, making him a bit like KFC’s Colonel Sanders except less likely to be played by Billy Zane. That would be easier, but Stamp doesn’t appear that often.
By the end, you get the rough gist sure, but there’s a lot you could miss out on (I did) and it’s so much work that I didn’t feel satisfied. It was too confusing to keep track of it all while it was happening.
So yes, narratively if Sephiroth succeeds then the story will be far easier to follow. I’ve been a big fan of the changes because I acknowledge the context that the twists that worked back in 1997 don’t work anymore. Yes, I edited that line down quite considerably and no, I’m not much fun at parties. This felt like a lot of obfuscation of the fact that it ends in a very similar way to what happened in the original. Yes, it leaves open a lot of possibilities, but it is less exciting when it is this messy.
Say what you like about Remake, everything was pretty clear and well-explained in the end. So yes let’s make this a bit more simple, Sephiroth, reunite the worlds and make my brain hurt less. For the love of god though, could you tone down the killing? You’re making me look bad.
Want to see a piece on Final Fantasy VII Rebirth from someone who isn’t having a moral crisis? Then by all means check out our top five minigames from the second installment of the Remake trilogy.
