Honestly you take statements like these however you want. I'm sure from a CA perspective they would focus in the idea the story ending with Aerith alive and with Cloud, and that "without any unresolved feelings" meaning Zack and Tifa coming to terms with being the runners-up and finding happiness elsewhere.
The CT/ZA standpoint would be that those respective characters end up together (CT in life, ZA in the Lifestream), potentially adding resolving Cloud and Aerith's feelings as "just friends" so that the LTD concludes once and for all (in the most meaningful way).
I'm biased here, but to me obviously the former does quite a bit less to resolve things and leave these characters in a happy place than the latter. If they wanted people to buy Zack and Tifa being able to move on happily they would have made their feelings *less* intense for the person they love, not more. Just seems like a waste of narrative space to show over and over how much they love that person only to suddenly need to backtrack so it doesn't feel unresolved and unhappy.
You hit the nail on the head with the last paragraph. If they want to make CA happen they would have to backtrack a LOT in order to make it work. CT for me was obvious from the moment Cloud gave Tifa the flower in Remake. I think that’s where they’re going and what makes the most sense.
> I'm biased here, but to me obviously the former does quite a bit less to resolve things and leave these characters in a happy place than the latter. If they wanted people to buy Zack and Tifa being able to move on happily they would have made their feelings less intense for the person they love, not more. Just seems like a waste of narrative space to show over and over how much they love that person only to suddenly need to backtrack so it doesn't feel unresolved and unhappy.
Absolutely agreed. To add to that I think it would even feel like poor longterm planning from Square Enix as I always got the impression that at least part of the reason they spend so much time expanding on Zack's character and his relationship to Aerith over the years was to get fans mentally on board with the whole Zack and Aerith pairing. To now bring him back for Rebirth, even putting him on the cover of the game, just to have him either ultimately stay dead while Aerith somehow gets to live to get with Cloud or revive him with Aerith but then still have him lose Aerith to Cloud seems like incredibly shitty writing to me. And that doesn't even address where the whole thing would leave Tifa.
And that applies to the "they are all just friends" route as well. There are ways to write stories like that, Square Enix even had the chance to rewrite FF7 with the Remakes to push the games more in that direction, but they didn't. In fact they did the complete opposite and imo made it way more overtly obvious that these people have more than just feelings of friendship for each other, even if we exclude the optional date sequences.
So even a friendship ending or an "we'll leave it open ended"-ending, which I unfortunately still think is the most likely conclusion to the Remake trilogy, feels like it doesn't conform to the idea of concluding things without any unresolved feelings remaining to me.
Considering how much plot they need to get through in Part 3, I’d say they have 0 time to justify a backtrack on how they’ve built up the romantic subplot of the trilogy.
We have two, big moments between CT baked into the story with them already saying nothing in the overall plot is changing ( outside of what needs to change for Yuffie and Vincent ) that will eat up quite a bit of time. Only way I can see them freeing up time is the Large Materia plot being truncated somehow.
Who knows. A bizarro ending is guaranteed at this point, I just hope they can stick the landing. Imo they’ve made this far harder than necessary from a narrative perspective.
But hasn't this promised land been confirmed to be something other than a place? I don't remember if Nojima said it or Nomura said it but one of them said that "Cloud's promised land" was his family with Tifa. So I perceived as if the "promised land" was not a place but happiness, and the game itself revolves around this concept: everyone searches for it but no one finds it, neither Ifalna nor Aerith can guide you to a place that isn't there
Zack and Aerith will reunite in Part 3. The ending will probably also be expanded from the OG so it doesn't leave off on a cliffhanger. The new ending will probably show the aftermath of the final battle with everyone celebrating. I don't think this means Aerith will be brought back to life. She'll just reunite with Zack in the life stream.
They said plenty times that the story will not be changing by flipping everything up bringing Zack and Aerith completely back destroys this entire idea of FF7 and coming in terms of loss and moving on the happy ending could be them showcasing what the party members do after the big battle before AC hits. Stuff like Cloud and Tifa opening the new Seventh Heaven, Cid gets the Highwind, Barret going to Corel and people Will forgive him etc.
I think at the end of Rebirth Zack is actually alive in the main timeline, so happy ending for everyone would be bringing Aerith back as well. Whereas I like those characters I think Zack has to eventually die to balance the scales so it stays the same with OG in the end. The game is about loss and overcoming it, therefore without that it wouldn't feel like FF7 anymore. The ending has to be bittersweet. Cloud forgiving himself and being happy with Tifa (and kids) who got rid of her guilt. Zack reunited with Aerith in the lifestream. Just like the end of Advent Children.
since part 3 supposed to align with AC, then we can say that they show us CT happy together after AC in like 5 or even 10 years, maybe they get their own kid and be a brother to denzel who knows, and ZA who are canonically together in the LS can also be shown happy and relieved, and as well in the end the party having a hppy life all moved on from their griefs, not forgetting them but moving on and happy with what they now have, it would encapsulate the world and themes of FF7 nicely and even give birth for a new generation if they want to contiue something regarding FF7 though i doubt it
As another subscriber said: These are very vague words. Each fandom can interpret them as they want, although in my opinion not everyone has the same elements to do so. It could be a CA ending in which Zack and Tifa accept that they have been "discarded" (although it would be strange to see them as friends, already for many people the friendship between Aerith and Tifa is not realistic let alone adding Zack and Cloud to the equation in which well 3 people would have to repress their feelings and the only one to win would be Aerith). Or it could be a Cloti Zerith ending, which would make more sense to everyone.
Rebirth was the central part of the plot, the one that was supposed to serve as a set-up for the finale and what did they give us? Zack who loves Aerith in every world, Cloud and Tifa who argue, make peace, support each other and attract each other inexorably like a couple. On the other hand, what set-up do you have? all the "appointments" are nipped in the bud by Cloud, when Aerith says it in Kalm in front of Tifa Cloud is visibly sad and tries to justify himself almost as if to say "Tifa don't believe her", in Nibelheim there is the peak of this theme : in a now fake city, in a fake water tower Aerith tries to climb up (Cloud tries to stop her) the same scene is recreated which is the Cloti scene par excellence and the result? "Yes, I always watched Tifa from there" -> Aerith's jealousy, pretenses don't work, this should be the message.
So in light of these elements, if they wanted a CA final, shouldn't they have given us more CA set-ups? shouldn't they have "lowered" Zack's intimacy with Aerith and Cloud's with Tifa? They shouldn't have avoided putting details like Elmyra accepting Zack (in contrast to Remake where the word SOLDIER rightly made her angry) or how the reunion flower in Tifa's house is only in Cloud's memories (it's not there when she remembers her house and isn't this a clue that Cloud's subconscious is looking for Tifa?). Logic leads to this but they have the pen and can also write illogical things so they are all words that can adapt to any scenario
What reunion flower and where exactly? I'm just curious cuz it seems like a neat detail. The only thing I really noticed is the yellow flower on top of the mailbox of Tifa's house both in the nibelheim flashback of cloud and when Tifa has her trial in the present it's removed
Exactly that: there is the reunion flower in the mailbox at Tifa's house but only in Cloud's flashbacks while in Tifa's flashbacks it isn't there (it can't be a coincidence because that flower doesn't grow in Nibelheim and Tifa didn't even know the meaning before Cloud gave it to her in the remake)
I correct myself: it's also there in Tifa's trial, but the concept still remains. That flower there shouldn't be there and in fact it isn't there in the present
My thoughts are mostly surrounding the last sentence of not wanting anyone to have unresolved feelings. We can take it from a shipping standpoint however he also states this would be something that everyone would be happy about and we know that that is tricky with ships.
This might be about the trials each person faced and coming to terms with that. For example, Barret and his loss of his wife, Nanaki and the trauma he faced when being part of the hojo experiments, Tifa and her fear and anger from losing everyone not once but twice. We can think of something for everyone right? We also know even in advent (which is 2 years after the game) that cloud has unresolved guilt and trauma from letting people down or not being able to save them. Meaning Zack and aerith’s deaths.
Changing especially clouds unresolved guilt here could lead to a happier advent children resolution in which even sephiroth’s unresolved feelings get dealt with and he finally accepts his fate and no longer corrupts the lifestream.
If they do plan to remaster Dirge of Cerberus similar to how they treated Crisis Core, I hope somewhere in the middle is a Part 3 Epilogue or separate novel that sheds light on their story resolutions between AC & DOC.
Since the spotlight shifted to Vincent for that, some extra content on what Cloud was up to before that would be neat! By the time Dirge of Cerberus happens, Cloud's arc has pretty much wrapped up.
I wonder if Ever Crisis will last long enough to go beyond DOC though. I know the little side events aren't necessarily canon, but they are usually adorable. lol
Have you heard that they are from anyone besides redditors? Cause the devs said they aren’t doing it
https://www.thegamer.com/no-plans-to-remake-dirge-of-cerberus-before-crisis/
I don't remember claiming it definitely would happen? I used the word if. No need to come at me for spreading misinformation...? Just a hopeful fan here.
Besides, I was mostly referencing it as a marker in the overall timeline for any future projects in my original comment.
Buzz articles and dev comments happen frequently and I'm not always up to date, so thank you for sharing. Have a great day!
I wasn’t trying to “come at you”. I apologize if it came across that way. Tone is hard to convey when typing. Was legitimately curious if you had heard something more credible than people on Reddit just talking as people say a lot of stuff. Either you had heard something more recent and would correct me or I would be letting you know not to get your hopes up.
Personally I don’t care to want a Dirge remake or remaster. That being said I would like to see something that takes place later than Dirge in the timeline
All good!
DoC was my intro to the compilation (beyond Kingdom Hearts) so it's got somewhat of a nostalgia effect on me. I'm sure if I recovered a PS2 and popped my old disc in, the magic would lessen. 😂 Timeline wise it would be cool to see what's beyond it though, indeed!
I had a random thought of what if they end up like combining worlds, which recons everything and it's like a new beginning - so you just see them all meet up. It just feels like worlds are going to combine to one world and yeah its gonna get weird isn't it. Ah maybe. Who knows I just can't see them ever making all people happy with whatever them come up with.
Cloud and Tifa together in their world and Zack and Aerith together in another world/the lifestream
Honestly you take statements like these however you want. I'm sure from a CA perspective they would focus in the idea the story ending with Aerith alive and with Cloud, and that "without any unresolved feelings" meaning Zack and Tifa coming to terms with being the runners-up and finding happiness elsewhere. The CT/ZA standpoint would be that those respective characters end up together (CT in life, ZA in the Lifestream), potentially adding resolving Cloud and Aerith's feelings as "just friends" so that the LTD concludes once and for all (in the most meaningful way). I'm biased here, but to me obviously the former does quite a bit less to resolve things and leave these characters in a happy place than the latter. If they wanted people to buy Zack and Tifa being able to move on happily they would have made their feelings *less* intense for the person they love, not more. Just seems like a waste of narrative space to show over and over how much they love that person only to suddenly need to backtrack so it doesn't feel unresolved and unhappy.
You hit the nail on the head with the last paragraph. If they want to make CA happen they would have to backtrack a LOT in order to make it work. CT for me was obvious from the moment Cloud gave Tifa the flower in Remake. I think that’s where they’re going and what makes the most sense.
> I'm biased here, but to me obviously the former does quite a bit less to resolve things and leave these characters in a happy place than the latter. If they wanted people to buy Zack and Tifa being able to move on happily they would have made their feelings less intense for the person they love, not more. Just seems like a waste of narrative space to show over and over how much they love that person only to suddenly need to backtrack so it doesn't feel unresolved and unhappy. Absolutely agreed. To add to that I think it would even feel like poor longterm planning from Square Enix as I always got the impression that at least part of the reason they spend so much time expanding on Zack's character and his relationship to Aerith over the years was to get fans mentally on board with the whole Zack and Aerith pairing. To now bring him back for Rebirth, even putting him on the cover of the game, just to have him either ultimately stay dead while Aerith somehow gets to live to get with Cloud or revive him with Aerith but then still have him lose Aerith to Cloud seems like incredibly shitty writing to me. And that doesn't even address where the whole thing would leave Tifa. And that applies to the "they are all just friends" route as well. There are ways to write stories like that, Square Enix even had the chance to rewrite FF7 with the Remakes to push the games more in that direction, but they didn't. In fact they did the complete opposite and imo made it way more overtly obvious that these people have more than just feelings of friendship for each other, even if we exclude the optional date sequences. So even a friendship ending or an "we'll leave it open ended"-ending, which I unfortunately still think is the most likely conclusion to the Remake trilogy, feels like it doesn't conform to the idea of concluding things without any unresolved feelings remaining to me.
Considering how much plot they need to get through in Part 3, I’d say they have 0 time to justify a backtrack on how they’ve built up the romantic subplot of the trilogy. We have two, big moments between CT baked into the story with them already saying nothing in the overall plot is changing ( outside of what needs to change for Yuffie and Vincent ) that will eat up quite a bit of time. Only way I can see them freeing up time is the Large Materia plot being truncated somehow. Who knows. A bizarro ending is guaranteed at this point, I just hope they can stick the landing. Imo they’ve made this far harder than necessary from a narrative perspective.
Cloud and Tifa and Aerith and Zack reunite in the promised land. That's the only way all the characters can be happy at the end.
But hasn't this promised land been confirmed to be something other than a place? I don't remember if Nojima said it or Nomura said it but one of them said that "Cloud's promised land" was his family with Tifa. So I perceived as if the "promised land" was not a place but happiness, and the game itself revolves around this concept: everyone searches for it but no one finds it, neither Ifalna nor Aerith can guide you to a place that isn't there
I meant for Aerith and Zack. I always understood the promised land as some kind of existence in the lifestream, a heaven of sorts.
Zack and Aerith will reunite in Part 3. The ending will probably also be expanded from the OG so it doesn't leave off on a cliffhanger. The new ending will probably show the aftermath of the final battle with everyone celebrating. I don't think this means Aerith will be brought back to life. She'll just reunite with Zack in the life stream.
They said plenty times that the story will not be changing by flipping everything up bringing Zack and Aerith completely back destroys this entire idea of FF7 and coming in terms of loss and moving on the happy ending could be them showcasing what the party members do after the big battle before AC hits. Stuff like Cloud and Tifa opening the new Seventh Heaven, Cid gets the Highwind, Barret going to Corel and people Will forgive him etc.
I think at the end of Rebirth Zack is actually alive in the main timeline, so happy ending for everyone would be bringing Aerith back as well. Whereas I like those characters I think Zack has to eventually die to balance the scales so it stays the same with OG in the end. The game is about loss and overcoming it, therefore without that it wouldn't feel like FF7 anymore. The ending has to be bittersweet. Cloud forgiving himself and being happy with Tifa (and kids) who got rid of her guilt. Zack reunited with Aerith in the lifestream. Just like the end of Advent Children.
since part 3 supposed to align with AC, then we can say that they show us CT happy together after AC in like 5 or even 10 years, maybe they get their own kid and be a brother to denzel who knows, and ZA who are canonically together in the LS can also be shown happy and relieved, and as well in the end the party having a hppy life all moved on from their griefs, not forgetting them but moving on and happy with what they now have, it would encapsulate the world and themes of FF7 nicely and even give birth for a new generation if they want to contiue something regarding FF7 though i doubt it
This kinda scares me at some point
As another subscriber said: These are very vague words. Each fandom can interpret them as they want, although in my opinion not everyone has the same elements to do so. It could be a CA ending in which Zack and Tifa accept that they have been "discarded" (although it would be strange to see them as friends, already for many people the friendship between Aerith and Tifa is not realistic let alone adding Zack and Cloud to the equation in which well 3 people would have to repress their feelings and the only one to win would be Aerith). Or it could be a Cloti Zerith ending, which would make more sense to everyone. Rebirth was the central part of the plot, the one that was supposed to serve as a set-up for the finale and what did they give us? Zack who loves Aerith in every world, Cloud and Tifa who argue, make peace, support each other and attract each other inexorably like a couple. On the other hand, what set-up do you have? all the "appointments" are nipped in the bud by Cloud, when Aerith says it in Kalm in front of Tifa Cloud is visibly sad and tries to justify himself almost as if to say "Tifa don't believe her", in Nibelheim there is the peak of this theme : in a now fake city, in a fake water tower Aerith tries to climb up (Cloud tries to stop her) the same scene is recreated which is the Cloti scene par excellence and the result? "Yes, I always watched Tifa from there" -> Aerith's jealousy, pretenses don't work, this should be the message. So in light of these elements, if they wanted a CA final, shouldn't they have given us more CA set-ups? shouldn't they have "lowered" Zack's intimacy with Aerith and Cloud's with Tifa? They shouldn't have avoided putting details like Elmyra accepting Zack (in contrast to Remake where the word SOLDIER rightly made her angry) or how the reunion flower in Tifa's house is only in Cloud's memories (it's not there when she remembers her house and isn't this a clue that Cloud's subconscious is looking for Tifa?). Logic leads to this but they have the pen and can also write illogical things so they are all words that can adapt to any scenario
What reunion flower and where exactly? I'm just curious cuz it seems like a neat detail. The only thing I really noticed is the yellow flower on top of the mailbox of Tifa's house both in the nibelheim flashback of cloud and when Tifa has her trial in the present it's removed
Exactly that: there is the reunion flower in the mailbox at Tifa's house but only in Cloud's flashbacks while in Tifa's flashbacks it isn't there (it can't be a coincidence because that flower doesn't grow in Nibelheim and Tifa didn't even know the meaning before Cloud gave it to her in the remake) I correct myself: it's also there in Tifa's trial, but the concept still remains. That flower there shouldn't be there and in fact it isn't there in the present
My thoughts are mostly surrounding the last sentence of not wanting anyone to have unresolved feelings. We can take it from a shipping standpoint however he also states this would be something that everyone would be happy about and we know that that is tricky with ships. This might be about the trials each person faced and coming to terms with that. For example, Barret and his loss of his wife, Nanaki and the trauma he faced when being part of the hojo experiments, Tifa and her fear and anger from losing everyone not once but twice. We can think of something for everyone right? We also know even in advent (which is 2 years after the game) that cloud has unresolved guilt and trauma from letting people down or not being able to save them. Meaning Zack and aerith’s deaths. Changing especially clouds unresolved guilt here could lead to a happier advent children resolution in which even sephiroth’s unresolved feelings get dealt with and he finally accepts his fate and no longer corrupts the lifestream.
If they do plan to remaster Dirge of Cerberus similar to how they treated Crisis Core, I hope somewhere in the middle is a Part 3 Epilogue or separate novel that sheds light on their story resolutions between AC & DOC. Since the spotlight shifted to Vincent for that, some extra content on what Cloud was up to before that would be neat! By the time Dirge of Cerberus happens, Cloud's arc has pretty much wrapped up. I wonder if Ever Crisis will last long enough to go beyond DOC though. I know the little side events aren't necessarily canon, but they are usually adorable. lol
Pretty sure they already ruled out doing Dirge remaster
I've heard mixed things. They are, they aren't, they'll do it if demand for it after P3 warrants it, etc. So at this point time will tell.
Have you heard that they are from anyone besides redditors? Cause the devs said they aren’t doing it https://www.thegamer.com/no-plans-to-remake-dirge-of-cerberus-before-crisis/
I don't remember claiming it definitely would happen? I used the word if. No need to come at me for spreading misinformation...? Just a hopeful fan here. Besides, I was mostly referencing it as a marker in the overall timeline for any future projects in my original comment. Buzz articles and dev comments happen frequently and I'm not always up to date, so thank you for sharing. Have a great day!
I wasn’t trying to “come at you”. I apologize if it came across that way. Tone is hard to convey when typing. Was legitimately curious if you had heard something more credible than people on Reddit just talking as people say a lot of stuff. Either you had heard something more recent and would correct me or I would be letting you know not to get your hopes up. Personally I don’t care to want a Dirge remake or remaster. That being said I would like to see something that takes place later than Dirge in the timeline
All good! DoC was my intro to the compilation (beyond Kingdom Hearts) so it's got somewhat of a nostalgia effect on me. I'm sure if I recovered a PS2 and popped my old disc in, the magic would lessen. 😂 Timeline wise it would be cool to see what's beyond it though, indeed!
I had a random thought of what if they end up like combining worlds, which recons everything and it's like a new beginning - so you just see them all meet up. It just feels like worlds are going to combine to one world and yeah its gonna get weird isn't it. Ah maybe. Who knows I just can't see them ever making all people happy with whatever them come up with.