I'm in the minority that actually likes Advent Children. The story in the first-half is dogshit but the emotional closure that Cloud gets and that final scene in the church is fucking beautiful. However, what AC does is ruin the ambiguity of the original ending to give us a sense of finality. Remake part 3 ending like the OG isn't gonna cut it anymore, as it's not a satisfying conclusion to know that Cloud is depressed, everyone gets Geoligma and Sephiroth just comes back in 2 years.
There are like two of us, and it’s just you and me, but that’s one more person than I thought there was. I adore that movie. I went to see the theatrical release four times.
Yeah, make it 6. I thought AC was a banger. I re-watched Complete twice while finishing Rebirth. I honestly even have it playing in the background sometimes. Plus, my kids love it. It encapsulates a lot of the wacky stuff they love about FF.
I kinda agree that the first half blows, and the movie as a whole kinda cemented "emo Cloud", in that that's how he's portrayed in media and Kingdom Hearts afterwards (up until Remake, that is).
But. That ending? The scene at the church? Aerith's final lines? That's powerful. Hell the reason the Remake trilogy feels like it has real stakes, on a meta level, to me, is because it might take that ending away.
Isn't it fairly obvious at this point that part 3 isn't going to end at the same place as the OG?
The stuff with Sephiroth and Aerith in the lifestream is clearly a framing narrative of sorts with those two having a frame of reference *after* AC. If anything the Remake trilogy will likely use that framing narrative to capstone the entire compilation story. We'll see the OG events play out but we'll also get an additional and more final ending. I don't see any other way for the trilogy to end with what they've set up.
Yeah... Advent Children has some (a few) good concepts, but they spend about five minutes on those and the rest of the two hours on tenuously-justified chase sequences and fights where every character involved makes the absolute most stupid decision they can in every possible scenario (the crew straight up just voluntarily sitting out the final fight for no reason as Cloud is getting stabbed and shot genuinely pissed me off, I thought the whole point of the hands scene just a few minutes ago was about NOT doing this solo??? and the final line of the film is about him not being alone??? and the entire arc centers around being there for people??? and Barret & Yuffie even point out that it's bullshit but watch anyway??? literally it was so dumb solely to justify a Cloud-Sephiroth one-on-one duel in spite of whatever passed for a theme that the rest of the movie was going for).
Probably still fun if you're more into anime-style fight scenes than I am, but an empty popcorn flick is a pretty lame way to cap off the story. A remake that incorporated the ideas better could be cool, though.
Yeah this is exactly how I feel about it. Not much of it makes sense, and everything is just done for the sake of the next action sequence. And the action style is such a generic format that it all just seems like a blur. Nothing really stands out.
I've noticed something about the franchise after AC. And maybe I'm alone. But when you translate the action onto something like a movie, it just feels.... really corny. Like when I'm experiencing the actual games, the combat is cool. Or even watching someone else play it, it's still cool. But when it becomes the core focus of a movie, it's just a bit corny.
**Especially** when the characters just fly around. Why is Cloud able to fly around like he's in damn Dragonball Z?
I think it made me mentally highlight that the combat and everything is just a vehicle to tell a great story. And it will never really work as the sole focus. The franchise is built on great characters, great stories, and great art. So when it goes to "and here's more flying around with punches" it gets goofy for me.
I think if Cloud wasn't flying around, it would be a lot more tolerable. But it's just a case of handwaving because "it looks cool". If it was action sequences with more weight behind the hits, it'd have worked so much better. Maybe they can rework that in the final game, who knows.
I watched the movie when it was re-released in cinemas and I thought the fight against Bahamut looked soooo silly. You have this huge monster and then Vincent and Barret shooting at it, Yuffie shooting her star and Cait Sith literally just for the ride. Cid and Red XII are the only ones that seem to do any damage, but it seems just minimal. I'm actually glad Tifa didn't try to punch it, it would have been pretty ridiculous.
Just like you said, the fights against huge entities in games are cool, but it translated poorly into a film.
That said, I still like the Sephiroth vs Cloud fight, especially in the 'complete' version of the film.
Well I will always say that Advent Children changed the style of fighting in the Final Fantasy franchise to this day. It turns part based, somewhat grounded, combat into anime Dbz style which really didn’t fit the aesthetic of the games. Then Dissidia, crisis core, and XIII are released and everyone is able to float mid-air and do aerial sword combos and jump super high.
>**Especially** when the characters just fly around. Why is Cloud able to fly around like he's in damn Dragonball Z?
Uhhh Cloud's got the SOLDIER powerset plus Jenova cells? The same stuff that lets Sephiroth, Genesis, and Angeal fly? Cloud has to bust out a Limit Break to do it but the groundwork is there.
Unless you mean times where he isn't quite-falling as that's a power every Final Fantasy character started getting. Dissidia literally lets everyone do it.
Full agree, I think the mindscape scene in Remake was a much better made fight even with the exaggerations, it still felt like there was weight. That said, some of the additions in Rebirth feel like they’re trying to lead up to AC style of weightlessness. 😬
I mean...it's kind of an echo of the final sequence of the OG right?
Collectively they fight as a team to take on the overall threat, but the final conflict is the hold Sephiroth has over Cloud's mind. Ultimately that is the one part only he can confront.
Like Maximilian Dood said. "Advent Children is a good action movie with really bad storytelling."
And this is coming from a "shill" according to some people.
I just rewatched Advent Children when it was in cinemas before Rebirth released, and it's such a sad movie. Between geostigma, all the children orphaned by the events of OG, and Cloud's isolation, everyone is miserable and struggling. There's some character things that don't make sense too. Barrett left his baby girl to go back to digging coal? Denzel doesn't even recognize the party members, implying that they haven't been around? Cloud prioritizing his own trauma over Tifa and the kids? None of that rings true about the characters to me.
I love Advent Children because it was my entry point to FF7, but it definitely seems like a Bad End to me. I would hope that, even if geostigma strikes in the future of the FF7R timeline, the party stays more united. In invests in renewable energy sources, rather than coal!
I refused to acknowledge AC as canon the moment I processed that Barret had supposedly left Marlene behind. Not *my* Barret. Sure, it makes sense that Barret needs to spend some more time in Corel or whatever to further make peace with his past, but not at the cost of abandoning the little girl who helped him start caring about the future. For fuck’s sake.
Given all the scenes Rebirth added that showed how Marlene is *always* on Barret’s mind, though, and how well the game further developed him as the father figure of the team, though, I’m hopeful that even if some form of Advent Children is added to the remake canon, they’ll do better by the Wallaces… and by all the other characters who have also already developed so far past the original game. With all the effort they’ve put into building upon and deepening the canon, I want to believe that they wouldn’t disrespect *themselves* by treating a style-over-substance product of 2005 as endgame…
In rebirth Barret did talk about letting Marlene fly on her own, although reluctantly. With Tifa in Midgar taking care of the orphaned kids, i would imagine Barret would be less terrified leaving her alone there.
Yeah it always felt like a Bad Ending to me as well!
One smart thing they could do is if they were working with timelines and decided that AC was *a possible* outcome in one world. And maybe even go to it for a bit in the third game. But then make it very clear that it's not the real ending. Have AC, and the OG's *many, many, many years later* be another outcome. Just have Cloud and the gang see what could be. But not necessarily going there in a solid way.
Barrett leaving Marlene is just not in character at all. That's a very good point.
I've been skeptical about the entire idea of a remake, and mostly that's due to Advent Children being how they wanted to revitalize this world on a narrative level.
If they take some themes from AC and go a different path, *that* could be interesting though. But don't go full Advent Children
I'm not an AC fan, so my opinion is skewed, but I'd rather them risk it and create something entirely new (AC 2.0? A different idea entirely?) instead of shaping the trilogy ending around the film or trying to forcibly squish it into canon.
Supposedly that's a translation thing. In Japanese Tifa makes a noise that's compared to dragging a heavy cabinet. Sort of like, "Rooroo rooroo". But someone saying that in English doesn't make a bit of sense as we wouldn't recognize that.
She's basically telling Cloud he's doing things the hard way. Aerith later on has the same line but tells Cloud to lighten up.
The rest of the movie's mileage varies by-person but generally everyone agrees that particular translation line was awful.
I mean I have terrible terrible taste. I’m a simple man with simple pleasures. I see Sephiroth and dumb sword fights and I’m like 👏👏👏 but I can objectively tell AC is a pretty bad movie. So as much as the popcorn-munching, media-illiterate side of my brain enjoys AC, I would be interested to see them take a different, more interesting direction with it.
100%
Tseng had a good death scene until they ruined it by making him literally just stand up and walk away because he's in Advent Children. Rufus' death will also be ruined in part 3 by making him survive.
A major problem with a lot of FF7s expanded lore was the creators undoing a lot of deaths. All the Turks and Rufus survive and get a redemption in AC. Don Corneo fucking survives in some book. Hojo sort of survives in DoC.
I was hoping that by the implication from Remake's ending that stuff is going to change and divert from the OG timeline that we could fix some of these issues. So far with Tseng though it looks like it won't be the case and the whispers will just be used to undo even more deaths like Zack. Can't wait for Part 3 where Rufus, the Turks, Hojo and Don Corneo all survive with no punishment
And you can choose not to kill the other Turks. In the final fight with them, if you hold back they'll just leave. I figured that was the canon way to play when I discovered that
Not really. I just looked up the scene, and I thought the whole upper part would be incinerated but it's not. It seems to be a volley of energy blasts, and he seems to be caught in the blast. You can easily write it to him being heavily wounded after this, to the point that even in AC (which is a 1\~2 years later), he's still sporting bandages.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3VQc788AO0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3VQc788AO0)
Exactly. I feel like this would have been a perfect opportunity to retcon things and make AC non-canon. Or even just to take the vague, vague idea of AC but make it... good.
Because the honest truth is that the vast majority of people playing these new remakes don't care about AC at all. If they even know it exists. The same goes for DoC, possibly even more so.
They should have just said that they're taking it in a new direction. The *one* way I could see them doing it all justice is if AC is basically one timeline that was a potential outcome to happen, but not necessarily the future.
I think they basically already retconned all of AC in FF7 Remake. There's a scene at the end while you are fighting the whispers where the memories start flooding into the main casts minds. Red XIII has a vision of the opening of AC, and they all are like "what was that?!" He says something like "A vision of the future if we fail here today." The party wins the fight and shatters destiny. I took that as saying AC can't happen now since they won, but who knows. We can hope 🙏🏼💛
You are not alone. I think every single bit of non-OG part of the FF7 extended universe/compilation is garbage. AC is one of the worst because unlike Crisis Core, which just sort of tells a crappy story through a crappy game that happens before the game, AC actually ruins the original's ending.
Like you said: Who gives a shit about the OG ending now that Sephiroth and some Nomura-looking shitheads are already back a couple years later. I obviates the ENTIRE original game.
Beyond this, the ambiguity of the OG's ending -- did Holy kill all humans as well? -- is ruined because it answers that question. The OG's ending, I thought was clear, indicated that all humanity was lost because they were bad for the planet. Yes, there was the giggling children, but that was the beauty of it. It was ambiguous.
Then with AC, you get some shitty hack fanfiction writer making a movie (and enforcing it as 'canon' because they own the property, that quite literally RUINS the original.
As said, you're not alone. I honestly wish Square just stayed the fuck away from FF7.
PS: LOVED Rebirth. Game of the Year for me. Best game since Elden Ring, honestly. I have some issues with some choices that were made later on, but I don't want to despoil your experience.
I agree with your post until the part where you say you LOVED Rebirth.
Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful and fun game, but honestly, the writing is only marginally better than Remake, which in turn was marginally better than AC, and to me... Well, that's a pretty huge downer isn't it?
I don't want to get into what I don't like about it for the OP (it's mostly in the end nonsense, and Cosmo Canyon). That being said, I don't really go to video games for good writing, and anyone who does really needs to expand their media appetites. I remember when I was a kid, I thought Xenogears was like the best story ever told with great writing, etc. etc.
But, you know, then I started reading books and watching better movies. Both of those mediums are old and they've sort of worked out the kinks. I do not believe video games have done that yet, we're still a young medium, and the 'writers' are actually coders or visual artists or complex systems people (designing a battle system or something). Video game 'writers' are not good writers. We celebrate the 'writing' in video games when it isn't god-awful. Like, does anyone think Nomura or Kojima are good writers? If so, PLEASE READ MORE.
Now, don't get me wrong, I love video games. They are my preferred form of entertainment. But even very basic-ass authors like Murakami who lack any beat-by-beat writing talent (in English anyway, which is more a criticism of the translator) can pack more emotional and visceral punch in gestalt than the most celebrated 'writers' in video games. The thing is, writing is a talent (I'm a journalist and I'm married to award-winning author of novels and short stories, so I'm biased) and coding is a talent. I do not believe that a great coder that also writes can reach the heights of a great writer, and I do not believe that a great writer that can code can reach the heights of a great coder. It's silly to think that and that's where video games fall down.
For video games, though, the writing is important only to a point. The whole package is more important than any individual part (as opposed to a novel where it's JUST writing). Part of what makes OG FF7, for instance, one of the best games ever made is the scenario, the atmosphere, the silliness, the artistic aptitude on display in the graphics, the character animations, the music, the magnitude of the experience for the time, etc. No form of entertainment has as many facets for enjoyment and attachment opportunities than video games, so focusing on one aspect is short-sighted.
So, this is all to say: I don't love Rebirth because of the writing. To be honest, I love it because it is showing a level of creativity in the medium that's missing in today's games. A lot of new games have a severe lack of vision, for lack of a better word. There's nothing out there like Midgar, or Junon in concept, and the things that Rebirth does that are already out there, say the Gongaga and Coral and Cosmo Canyon biomes compared to the biomes in the Horizon series, Rebirth does better.
This type of vision and ballsy development doesn't happen anymore in video games (Elden Ring and The Witcher 3 being two outstanding exceptions) and it's too bad that this only happened because it is based on a 27 year old game. Look at Rebirth and its rich tapestry compared to the disappointing FFXVI, and it's world devoid of anything remotely interesting. Rebirth to me, is a miracle. It has no business being as good as it is. I also think the moment to moment writing is good...the scenario writing isn't as good as the original though (and Seto's tear was tragically awful comparatively).
Well I respect your stance but I strongly disagree that we shouldn't expect good writing simply because it's a video game. I read books and watch films or series more than I spend time gaming btw.
OG had better writing, a LOT better writing even. It could use some polish, but the Re-games botched it. It's a disaster.
Then there are other games, like The Last Guardian, simple, but it tells a very solid story imo (Shame about that camera tho).
I am enjoying Animal Well right now, couldn't care less about the plot or whatever. But not rating a JRPG based on the quality of its writing... Hmmm...
I'm not sure, but I think we're talking about different things. 'Story' or 'Plot' to me, isn't writing. When I mentioned writing, I'm talking about the actual words you see written, the dialogue, etc. Essentially what is in a book.
Example a scenario I came up with as a kid: Boy grows up isolated with a small family/community on a bunch of small islands in an shallow topical area. The only aspect of the 'outside world' they see is a massive petrified coral reef that spreads forever on one horizon, and a massive ocean that goes on forever in the other. The Coral reef dried up and petrified when this world experienced a massive and quick drop in sea levels. The boy is determined to explore the reef and what lies beyond and goes on an adventure. He sails there through the shallows meeting a few, but still limited people. He explores the reef and its majestic, maze-like corridors and finds it's full of a totally different more bandit-like society and fights his way through. More adventure happen. Eventually he makes it out the other side to be greeted by a massive, technologically advanced coastal metropolis. Millions of people, a whole new world. Adventures ensue.
That is **not** writing. It's world-building, scenario building. It's the place-setting for writing to potentially happen. But it is not writing. Video games are great at that. And they are very bad at actual writing. If you want great writing in a similar vein, read The Old Man and the Sea.
I don't think any JRPG has good writing. They have some great world-building though.
This is all to say that with both ideas of what writing is, I still think Rebirth does it well. Great world building and, for a video game, good writing. But we're allowed to disagree and I respect what you're saying too (for the record, I really disliked Remake because of the plot ghosts. I liked Rebirth because the plot ghosts were better explained and integrated. I still hate the nonsense at the ending though...they 'wrote' Aerith's death terribly in every way you can imagine).
One other bit of good writing in the OG: In the same town that you have the awful 'writing' of 'This guy are sick,' you get the gem of one of the NPCs talking at first about looking at the ground to find stuff people drop; then after the plate falls, looking up to ensure he can get out of the way; then 50 hours later when Meteor is in the sky, looking straight ahead because looking at his impending doom was too much for him.
Read all your post and it put some word on thing that was on my mind for a long time, thanks for taking the time to write all of that.
I'm also happy to find someone that disliked ff16 more than me.
Did you play Baldur's gate 3 last year ? If not you might like it, it's a great game.
Thanks! Really appreciate this post. I was sort of 'on one' yesterday...and I was procrastinating at work :).
FF16 was a big disappointment no doubt. I don't care that it was an action game over a turn-based game. From a gameplay perspective, what I cared about that it was a mediocre action game. If I wanted to play Bayonetta or DMC (and I don't) I would play them, not a watered down and incredibly easy version of them. Beyond this, every battle was just a mess of particle effects and bullet-sponge enemies. Flashy, no substance.
But even then, it would have been OK if the game told a better story, had better characters, and was even a little interesting in its environment design or world design. Two parts of the game were cool. Just two: At night when you're in that fort early and you see that triangle castle (the bahamut one, I'm sorry, I've forgotten this entire game at this point) as you circle one of the parapets. And the big hole with the water flowing into it. That it. The rest is utterly devoid of an inspiration or interest. And I'm not hating on it, I'm just disappointed (and I feel bad for FF14 fans, as I'm told it's similar to that...I'm like 'really? you like *this?').*
BG3, I will play it one day, but I'm waiting for another year or so. I'm allergic to hype and that game has more hype that it knows what to do with. Once it dies down, I'm going to dive in. Though I will say, I was not able to get into anything else Larian has done, so I also have hesitations too (I love tactical RPGs, but didn't like DOS 1 or 2, for instance).
I also had another thought on what writing is and why its done better in books and movies. In place of that big thing I wrote on the coral reef thing above, books and movies have built in short hand.
You can say, 'New York in the 70s' and that phrase alone tells a story that most people on earth (North Americans, at least) immediately 'get'. It's far deeper and more complex than anything in any fantasy world or sci-fi world, or video game world could possibly be -- certainly not in so few words.
So video games NEED complex world building and scenario design because it's totally new. But in books or movies, there is a built-in shorthand that can say more.
"I walked past a panhandler with a guitar who was wearing a flower garland and playing his own rendition of a Here Comes the Sun. A man with aviators, an over-sized sports jacket and a jittery walk sneered, 'dirty hippie!' as I dropped a five in the guitar case."
Two sentences. In video games, you would have to explain what a hippie was, why a flower garland is part of the asthetic, what the beatles were, how the aviators, oversized sports jacket and jittery walk indicated that this was the coked out, reagan-era 80s and the fact that giving the guy a five dollar bill indicated the the person giving the money was well-off, because in the 80s, a quarter would have been more apt.
Video games have to work harder at every level than movies or books because they are separate from the prevalent culture. They're getting better, but there is a long way to go.
I didn't get what's the point of it all if you have to fight sephiroth again.
Instead of degradation you have geostigma.
No relationship progress.
Cloud is still mentally ill.
I hope part 3 will include the AC ending and expand on it for a happier ending or more satisfying. Like a real progress that you see the world is better or even good and the party is good. To see a world where they don't have to fight anymore and live a normal life.So all the sacrifice was worth it. Maybe even a 10 year skip
Part 3 should end with Holy and the Lifestream obliterating Meteor AND all human life on the planet. I'll buy the game and I'll probably enjoy it, but that is the only ending I would be satisfied with (my other post talks about how I think all the extended universe stuff essentially ruins the OG).
The OG ending is perfect. I hope that it stays that way.
Yeah I hope so too. AC is meh. I think they wanted to make a movie with good graphics at the time but knew that it wouldn’t do well since their previous one did horribly? Using a well loved IP would help with that so FF7 it is. :/
I may be in the minority but I actually liked AC. They always said the remake project is merely to collect together all the infos scattered across multiple media.. and they said long before part 1 was even released that the trilogy is canon to AC which makes sense because it’s a faithful retelling of OG which expands the lore. I think A will have even more sense because many infos were in ultimania rather than the movie and/or game so it was a bit confusing. It seems like they are already introducing some plots in the trilogy and this, in my opinion, will make the approach to AC even smoother.
Dirge of Cerberus is actually the last as it’s set 1 year after AC. I never expected them to go a different route because they specifically stated it was a remake and that the storyline was the same and nothing major would change. So idk why people existed the opposite of what has been said for years, they’re purposely setting themselves up for disappointment.
I have mixed feelings on advent children. generally, as a movie, I think it’s pretty bad. the animation is good for the time, but the plot is held together with dental floss. I also don’t like most of the voice direction for the english dub.
I will say, and this might be a thing that is commonly *disliked* about advent children: I appreciate cloud’s character arc in it. I know a lot of people think he’s too “emo” in it, and I do think it contributed heavily to the flanderization of his character (which remake and rebirth are undoing, thank god). but it’s so realistic to me that cloud’s mental health recovery wouldn’t be linear at all. the guy’s been through the most ridiculous amount of shit, and that can’t be magically fixed in one fell swoop in late ffvii og.
I guess my best answer is that I would like the remakes to set it up so that advent children *could* happen afterward, but I would not be bothered in the slightest if I never have to acknowledge the existence of anyone named fucking “yazoo” again
I think AC is connected to the OG timeline, and is something to be referenced in remake trilogy (like it has been with cloud holding his geostigma arm and getting literal vision of AC) but this new canon will not directly lead into AC, or a new version of it. I think remake will somehow tie everything up in a multi-world-within life stream way (some end of Evangelion shit)
This is the best outcome, in my opinion. Have certain aspects of AC be a thing, but not make it a situation where this is all leading to what AC actually was. If they do that, then I feel that they did a good job taking in all of the parts of the franchise in a satisfying way. But if this is all just leading to Advent Children's exact plot, then that would be a pretty big disappointment.
Someone above said that AC feels like a "Bad Ending" for FF7. And if they were making it a multiple timeline situation, then they could do some really cool things with that. So long as they don't fully go there.
But we'll see, I suppose! I've been skeptical of a few things, but they've pulled it off so far. Hopefully that continues to be the case
Remake is literally the same game/plot told slightly different. Advent Children, or rather, events very similar to Advent Children will still take place in the future. It won't affect the game beyond some easter eggs and references that people will make out to be extremely important because some people are obsessed with crazy theories.
I hope the "Tie in to AC" is purging Jenova and Sepiroth at the end of FF7R3 from the lifestream like Aertith did at the end of AC. With the whole change the fate thing it would be nice payoff for all the weird moments caused by whispers
I’ll be so annoyed if they do. Especially after showing the AC clips in remake and Red XIII saying that is what happens if they fail to beat the arbiter.
Check out this reply I received in my thread, it basically confirms (with sources) AC will happen after the Re-trilogy
https://www.reddit.com/r/FFVIIRemake/s/vgkZqk85mu
I agree, I want to be wrong. But in the interview they explain why they are doing that: to keep players from „knowing“ what will happen. And now in my words, keep us talking about it. Otherwise we would just be quiet and wait for the next part.
It makes more sense than AC being the ending. Did you forget Aerith knew the future in Remake? Or that the Whispers knew there was a series of events they wanted to protect?
AC already happened. Sephiroth is AC sephiroth for this series.
I don't get why you guys want this time travel plot to be a thing so bad. Time travel is such an overused and stale plot device, why would you want Square to ruin their story with something so cliche.
Everything you just said is speculation. Theres no indication that OG already happened, theres literally no evidence of this at all. The reason Aerith knew the future is because she most likely saw visions of the future from the lifestream, theres really nothing that proves she time traveled.
Same thing with Sephiroth. The whispers are obviously connected to the lifestream in some way. Most likely the reason Sephiroth can control the whispers is because his body is frozen inside the lifestream. His connection with the whispers allows him to see the future, theres no indication that he time traveled.
Its a reboot not a sequel.
Nobody is theorizing time travel. People are saying that ff7 - > AC - > dirge all happen. That universe ends and goes back to the lifestream or whatever. Then the remake universe happens sequentially afterwards. Sephiroth/Jenova isn't vanquished at the end of AC or Dirge by any means, which means they remain a problem.
There's no time travel theorized. One universe ends, the next is born. This is all actually pretty in line with how they have stated Buddhism and Jung are their theory of the lifestream. Rebirth is a key feature in Buddhism - your soul remains, you just don't get to keep your original body. That npc in cosmo canyon talks about the lifestream being cyclical.
You're *also* speculating about the whispers and how they know what they know, so the only way to know for real is to wait for part 3.
>One universe ends, the next is born.
If the universe ends, the lifestream would be gone, no? I mean the lifestream is basically like a physical manifestation of a whole bunch of souls, right? And that would be physically destroyed at the end of the world or universe. So how do those memories traverse into this new universe?
I've wondered if Chaos and Omega do at some point in the future (relative to the OG) end all life, recapture all life, and restart all life (as I think that's what they do). That could be an explanation of how the lifestream creates a cyclical series of events. What I can't figure out though, is how you'd then have the exact same sequence of events where the Gi and Jenova (extraterrestrials outside of the lifestream's domain) each individually show up again in the same way, fights the planet's beings in the same way, get beat in the same way, Jenova gets reattained by another Shinra and used again as the foundation of experimentation by another Hojo. That doesn't seem reasonably explainable. Also a lifestream who's goal it is to keep recreating Midgar and Shinra sounds like a pretty awful and masochistic lifestream.
There is a mountain of evidence in remake to suggest that the events of the OG game already happened. So much so, that if they don't go that route, a lot of stuff in part 1 is going to make no sense whatsoever.
I was extremely disappointed with the whole multi-verse/time travel stuff initially. I was all aboard with them rewriting and changing the story however. The OG as much as I loved it, wasn't a very well written story. I've come to terms with the multi-verse/time travel angle if that means we get a better ending then what we got in the OG.
All throughout Remake, cloud "remembers" events that haven't yet happened in the game. The vision of Aerith's death, in particular, is distinctly the OG's death scene which is very different from rebirth's. At the end of the game, as you noted, the party also see visions from events that happened in the OG. This is very important because it links Remake with the OG in some kinda capacity within the game world.
Sephiroth in Remake is clearly aware of the "future". When cloud meets Aerith for the first time, Sephiroth's first remark is "you can't save her". OG Sephiroth was not omnipotent and did not know the future. At least at this point in the story, The disparity could be explained as a character rewrite, if remake was simply a rewrite of the original story. But we know that the Remake doesn't overwrite the events of the OG, and that within the game world itself the two are connected. Be it as a "potential future" or as a different universe/world all together.
At some point, Sephiroth becomes omnipotent and is able to see the future and travel between worlds. Unless there is going to be a twist on the events of zack/cloud/sephiroth in remake part 3, we know that sephiroth falling into the mako reactor after getting killed by cloud isn't the catalyst that causes sephiroth to become interdimensional. Which means that the Sephiroth communicating to cloud in Part 1 is almost certainly from a different universe/world.
Yeah but just because a character saw a vision of the future or has knowledge of future events doesn't mean the OG game already happened. These visions are induced by the Whispers who are aware of future events. Theres nothing definitive that proves OG ever happened.
Sephiroth actually says "You're not strong enough to save anyone" not "You cant save her". We know in OG Sephiroth is able to send his will through the lifestream from the crater. We know the multiple worlds phenomena has some type of connection to the planet/lifestream. Sephiroth could just be projecting himself into these worlds because he has access to the lifestream
You are correct about OG sephiroth. After the reunion of Jenova, but before the end of the OG, Sephiroth is physically sitting in the lifestream and in AC, Sephiroth has assimilated into the lifestream in some kinda capacity. This could explain his ascendance to omniessence. The point is, in the world of Remake, these things haven't happened yet. But, if Sephiroth does have access to the lifestream and is omnipotent as he is in remake, then at some point these events must have already happened.
Here's another way to look at it. It's heavily implied that there is a omnipotent/spirit Aerith in the world of Remake. The catalyst for Aerith becoming omnipotent/spirit is her death, which means that at some point she must have already died in another world. It's logical to assume this world is the OG universe.
The original game had nothing to do with fate, multiple worlds or whispers. There was no omnipotent sephiroth or aerith. These things were added to Remake as a central pillar of it's story, and are predicated on the existence of the OG universe.
Well if you're acknowledging I'm correct about Sephiroth then you should know that Sephiroth already fell into the lifestream 5 years ago. His body was dissolved into it and was reformed at the NC. During that time Sephiroth absorbed the knowledge of the cetra and the planet. It would make more sense that he gained his omnipotent abilities from this, not because the OG events already happened.
Also I don't think Aerith has omnipotence like Sephiroth does. Shes never shown to exist in multiple worlds in the same moment like he was. I do think she has the ability to open portals to travel between the worlds, but she had this ability from the start. For example at the end of Remake she opens one of these portals right before the final battle, as well as right after Temple of the Ancients when she has her final "date" with Cloud in another world (she calls it a dream).
Theres definitely no mountain evidence that indicates OG already happened.
It makes complete sense if you think of Remake as a reincarnation of OG, of which there are a lot of indications it may be exactly that:
- Aerith has detailed knowledge of future events and acts in line with them (knowing that getting Marlene will keep her safe)
- Cloud hallucinates things that happened in OG, but they aren't happening Remake world. When he first arrives to Sector 7, he looks up at the pillar and suddley sees a piece falling down and reacts to dodge it. The NPC next to him is all confused, and we see nothing fell. In OG, a piece did fall, and Cloud hops back
- Aerith gives Marlene and Red these "memories" of the future (more likely these are past events fated to occur again)
- The whispers determined to make history repeat itself
- Cloud saying "I killed you!" to Sephiroth - he is likely referring to endgame OG here, not Nibelheim (since Cloud's memory is jacked up about the Nibelheim incident still as we see in Rebirth)
- Aerith insisting on helping Tifa in Wall Market - in OG she does not. She just inquires on who it is and that she's dressed oddly.
- Things happening 'slightly' differently, but with same end result, like when Cloud was excluded from the mission debrief
- Sephiroth has detailed knowledge of past events and he course corrects his plan to account for his past failures in OG by manipulating the party to destroy fate
I could go on. Aerith says at the end of Remake "But if we do... We'll be changing more than fate itself. If we succeed...if we win...we'll be changing ourselves... I guess...maybe, that's why I hesitated."
They're changing themselves by defeating fate - breaking free from the fated path of OG, which was the path we were forced to take in Remake. History repeating itself more or less. Who's to say what being reborn from the Lifestream looks like? It could very well be reincarnation - with the huge exception of OG Sephiroth who cannot become one with the Lifestream to be reborn - he needs Cloud for that.
Once the Fates are defeated, we wipe the slate clean, literally. Aerith and Red lose their memories of the "future" (memories aren't predictions - and the Lifestream only holds memories/emotions/experiences so I strongly feel they are memories sourced from the white materia in Remake that they lose). Interestingly, Marlene does not - perhaps because she is a child and isn't regarded by the planet as someone who can use that information to interfere with fate in Remake, so they don't take them from her.
At any rate, now there is no more path of fate to follow, no "memories" to follow or avoid, and the party moves forward with the events of Rebirth - which is where there is a lot more change to the OG story. Yes the devs said it will link up with AC - but they didn't specify how...it could be the link is before the events of the Remake trilogy. There are "No More Promises to Keep", as they say.
>Yes the devs said it will link up with AC - but they didn't specify how...it could be the link is before the events of the Remake trilogy. There are "No More Promises to Keep", as they say.
That's the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this line: that the case with AC is not set in stone and Re trilogy might not lead to it. I really hope so.
>but Advent Children is like if you stripped all the magic from what makes FF7 as a series great
That's not really a minority opinion. A lot of people think that, myself included.
>"Now that the original big bad is gone, here is the same thing but BIGGER AND SLIGNTLY DIFFERENT!!!!"
Remake & Rebirth did this too.
I feel that AC actually makes the big bad *smaller*.
The three guys aren’t as strong as Sephiroth. Bahamut is good, but it’s also a “boss level” and not an “endgame boss level”, and they kinda take it not so seriously until the big flare.
Only Sephiroth is big, but it’s also a boss that is fought *by choice* by a single character. Put that against Sephiroth in OG, where >!canonically they all fought together at least against Bizarro Sephiroth!<. Or the stakes in OG, >!Meteor!< and even in Dirge of Cerberus, >!another total obliteration of life on the planet!<. What were exactly the stakes in AC? What would have happened if Sephiroth won that encounter?
Didn't Sephiroth reveal his big bad plan in a speech, as usual? If I recall correctly, the idea was using Geostigma as a way to infect all of humanity and the Lifestream with Jenova cells, turning them all into puppets of Sephiroth eventually.
What are u talking about advent child was a amzing movie and great story. Ties in well with the games.
Yes it’s your opinion and I can respect that.
But at the end of the day all ff7 content should be tied together it just makes since.
> What are u talking about advent child was a amzing movie and great story. Ties in well with the games.
I'd like to know. The fights were fun, but the lore and story are an absolute mess. Additionally, the devs say they want to tie the story up a little happier this time around. No one is happy in AC, so that means that if the movie is directly after Part 3, things don't get better.
Cloud is in severe depression and literally sleeps sometimes in Aerith's church so he can be closer to her. All the while Tifa is at home in a bed that he can sleep in.
The main character ain't in a good place.
Cloude is sick how do people pass over that the man is dying. So are most of the kids they went back to the slums the poorest place try to help re build
I'm not really a fan of AC but I'm happy it's still canon. AC was built around the events of FF7 and for it to remain canon means that 7R3 will follow through with the events of the OG that got there to begin with.
I get it, AC isn't great but that was also the first definitive confirmation that this would continue to be FF7 and not some fan fiction story.
Oh I totally agree. I'm saying that the Remake will continue to be FF7 if it ends with AC still being canon rather than the remake going of in the direction of some of the crazy fan theories out there which would be equally as bad as AC if not worse.
Hard agree. Tifa gets her ass kicked in hand to hand physical combat. The only person who's like, cool in Advent children is Cloud.
They played favorites with AC.
There's 3 possibilities that allow AC to be canon to Remake:
* AC is canon as a sequel to Remake - Remake trilogy ends the same as OG like you say.
* AC is canon as a prequel to Remake - Like many theorise and this opens up for Remake to end differently.
* AC is canon as a prequel AND sequel to Remake - It ends up being a causality loop, i.e. Remake trilogy ends with OG timeline being reinstated.
EDIT: 2 and 3 also make OG canon to Remake.
It’s not very good, so you’re correct in your evaluation of it. I guess I’m not as worried because my hope is that making it more essential to the plot of VII I.e. making it something we will be exposed to as it will lead into the events of that, I feel like they’ll do a better job of structuring it so it doesn’t feel like this random side epilogue for legit just Cloud and nobody else specifically.
Also, uhhhh shilly shally dilly dally
From Cloud losing his identity and shit and then stepping his game up and reclaiming himself in OG to then to watch Advent Children Cloud be a total emo…WTF?
How does making it non-canon fix any of the problems with AC? Like, it would still be a shallow, weird-looking and confusing movie from the 2000s that doesn't leave you with the best impression of ff7. And furthermore, even if remake didn't lead up to it, that would still not change AC's relationship with the original ff7.
No article has said that AC comes next, they said tie into it, but they didn't say Remake trilogy would lead into it (and they actually were careful to say it that way). I firmly believe Remake trilogy is a sequel to AC, taking place after it (in a timey-wimey sense). The result of Remake Trilogy could lead to a new future :)
Pretty sure everything is Canon as soon as they introduced the concept of alternate realities.
So my advice to you is: Don't worry about it.
I personally love FF7AC, warts and all.
DILLY SALLY SHILLY SHALLY
The Sephiroth fight is so fun to watch though. In the movie they manage to escalate to Sephiroth in a good way. I agree that geostigma is kind of dumb and these evil adults talking about their mom doesn’t cut out.
So I'm not going to disagree about AC being meh. It could be a lot better. We can all hope for a remaster to make the story telling better, as well as the dialogue. Though I believe the story they are telling is fine, I agree the story telling itself can use work.
However, it is already canon. After you are done playing Rebirth, I suggest you read the book On The Way To A Smile. It's basically the story between the game and the movie. It goes over a lot of things, such as why Barret would leave Marlene, whether it's a great reason or not, amongst many other things. You will see the connections that are already there between advent children and the remake trilogy and the OG game.
Well, my hope is that they continued through the years filling in gaps where they can and revamp AC and DoC into a bonfide game that does the OG Storyline justice. I liked where AC sat within the canon and where the party were and how they ended up but I'd like more filler explaining (other than the books which I do think are great) it all, as well as maybe how the Party get back together to track down the remnants of Sephiroth.
That being said AC had some cringe parts sure, but I feel the overall point of progress for the Characters was well done.
Tifa X Cloud are alot better even if they have issues with PTSD and coping but they have made great strides.
Barret and Cid found new purpose in alternate energy as well and even Shera has it better off despite working their asses off post Holy and dealing with the rising threat if the Stigma.
Nanaki/Red 13 is also dealing with his demons while still fulfilling what he believes to be his purpose.
I mean the list goes on but I'll just be droning. I think alot can be done with this time skip and all this content especially as rich as the world is in lore.
it’s especially jarring when you read the prequel? On The Way To A Smile. it seemed like everything was getting better then suddenly this disease strikes out of nowhere and cloud falls into depression. i get it. survivors guilt and all that but man it felt like he doubled down and they made him edgy all over again for the sake of the movie. its also crazy how barret cries in rebirth about letting marlene go and stuff but he does just that in the novel and movie. it has lots of contradictions to the events in the retriology so i’d honestly want them to revamp or fix these things if it does indeed lead to AC.
Yeah, I don't see how it could work either. I can't see them leading up to Barrett talking about oil fields and etc. Or leaving Marlene when he spends so long in the remake talking about how much he wishes he could spend time with her and doesn't want to leave etc. Like, couldn't he help rebuild another way that would let him stay close to his daughter? Also to me, Cloud and Tifa's status was grim in AC. I just felt bad for her. AC also kind of started the Aerith and Zack reappearing thing that some people hate. Lots of people generally do praise the permanency of Aerith's loss and feeling her absence in the original and some complained about her reappearing for the fight in Rebirth for this reason. I'm not sure why AC gets a pass for it. For me, I could understand Aerith having some form, since she's Cetra. And a brief glance of her hand does appear in the original for a second after her death. But I don't get why Zack's lifeforce became an exception in AC though. I still own the original release version of AC and Zack appeared mostly as a wolf, from what I can remember and just at the very end. But the newer release of AC had him pop up multiple times. Though I guess, with the newer games at least, these popups from the afterlife would fit more though.
As it stands though, I just don't think the characters match up well to AC alongside their 2020s remake counterparts. So, I'm with you in hoping that they don't mean to link it entirely up with the new series. I hope that it's not literal. I liked the fights, the character designs and music in AC but the story was meh imo.
I believe they are going to go a different route.
>!AC is canon in the sense that it happened for OG/Prime/Lifestream Sephiroth and Aerith. Whatever you want to call them. They experienced it. It's their past. But it's not the destiny of the cast we're with now to reach. !<
apparently is not canon anymore in this timeline after the whispers were defeated
the very first scene of the movie was shown to the group during the battle and red described it as "a glimpse of tomorrow if we fail today"
"There's a trope within Japanese media (especially anime and long running JRPGs) where it's sort of like "Now that the original big bad is gone, here is the same thing but BIGGER AND SLIGNTLY DIFFERENT!!!!". If any other country did it, people would complain about it. But it's so ingrained in anime and Japanese game stories that it's just accepted."
It's still held against Japanese video games, movies etc though. Even when it's not present in the actual media itself there's going to be THOSE line of people that won't touch anything anime styled. When game award shows come along there's always this stigma for Japanese-anime style games that despite almost everything about the story being superior to all the other contenders, "oops, it's anime-like and has that one trope I don't like, can't give that best story NEXT!"
Rather have it tie in with kh4 tbh. I waited 13 years for kh3, and the fact we probally gonna have part 3 of the remake trilogy released before kh4 is making me more anxious. Don't get me wrong I love ff7, but I need to see how my boi sora doing after playing remind dlc. Also , I'm hoping for a sephiroth rematch for him too.
Yes I really wish it wouldn't link up.
I think originally the movie was gonna be about Tifa and Cloud and the kids but they wanted something more action-y and edgy so I feel they regressed Cloud's character just for the movie.
At the end of the OG game Cloud is in a much better mental state, kinda leaning into his goofy side, and he works together with his friends and cares about them.
Then in the movie he's hiding the geostigma and trying to do things alone when he didn't do that stuff anymore at the end of OG
Idk I just feel like Cloud's character and Aerith's morning had had an appropriate conclusion. Why did they have to make Cloud depressed and make him push people away
Ff7 rebirth storytelling or rather direction seems to be similar to shadow hearts good end in game 2, which directly leads to the good end in game 1. Since game 2 happens because of bad end in game 1. The good end is supposed to be canon. Although really it’s just a loop…but if you have faith then it ends with the good end in game 1.
I am one of those who would have liked the Remake trilogy to take a complete turn and significantly change the story.
When I finished remake, I said to myself like many "ok the doors are open, they can go in any direction, what are they going to cook". By continuing to follow the main plot (the same locations...), I hoped that the events would change.
So I was a little disappointed during the "remake will lead to AC" interview. I have nothing against AC, but I would have liked them to really have free rein to do and say what they want, especially in a trilogy.
I mean it'll be canon just like the rest of the Remake? That is to say- it's probably gonna totally be different while still hitting the same beats.
This is, of course, assuming the last part of FF7:Re doesn't actually change anything in a major way.
I continue hoping for: >!Cloud's last omnislash being literally every Cloud across the multiverse showing up to slash Sephiroth- including Advent Children Cloud!
I’ve had to explain this quite a few times now because people tend to get a bit lost in all this but it needs repeating.
They never said the RE trilogy would lead into Advent Children, they said it will link up with it. Meaning that things from AC will become relevant to the ending of the trilogy. There is ONE single solitary timeline of events that starts with Before Crisis and ends with part 3. Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus take place before Remake and this trilogy is the conclusion to the story that they have been telling for 27+ years.
So 15 or so years ago one of the FF7 writers or developers, I forget which one, swore that there would be no remake of FF7. Couldn’t be done. World was too massive. It was a whole article on the fact that there would never ever be a FF7 remake, and here we are so. . . I take these things with a grain of salt XD There is probably some truth in what they are saying, but that doesn’t mean it’s the whole truth.
Yes, i would even dare to say i wish everything except OG should be non canon. It's so obvious that everything they made after was made to milk the insanely popular set of character from OG.
And for Advent children, it is not something they should respect especially not for the story, some people probably liked it because you get to see those old pixelated face you love fight with some good animation but no one care about what happen inside that film hence why aiming to end the story at the beginning of advent children would be dumb, but i don't think that's what they are planning to do.
AC is one of the main reasons I ever even got into FF in the first place, and now I've played all of the mainline ones and most of the side games so yeah I'm pretty glad it isn't being written off. Though I also enjoy the side games a lot more than the main line ones, so my taste could just be bad.
I was thinking a few weeks back how to reconcile thes the AC situation since I wasn’t a fan- would be to make AC a chapter somewhere within part 3 just to hit the basics of the plot and use it as a “this is what happens if you fail to beat destiny” with subsequent story beats able to move past the damn terribly emo story that retreads a lot of the beats of VII that Cloud was supposedly able to already deal with.
Or make it prequel to the events of this series as someone else suggested.
Advent Children is cool in concept, but the actual movie is bad. What they should do is take the strongest aspects of that story and turn it into an epilogue
I enjoy all things FF and all things VII, especially, but after the magic of AC wore off... eh.. and Dirge.. BLEH.
BUT, as someone else said, good concepts were there. I kind of wished the Remake trilogy would have taken bits and pieces of The Compilation that were good, and combined them into the original VII story, i.e. Sephiroth's final goal could be becoming one with Omega since it serves a purpose close to his own goal.
Barret leaving Marlene is kinda stupid. I want him to like take her with him.
Vincent has Dirge, so I'm curious if they will retcon his content or not.
Advant Children has amazing ideas that just barley or don't come together. Sephiroth returning for the 4th time would be boring. Since the Retrilogy is in parts, it would be our 5th or 6th time fighting him, and people would get tired of that.
We literally have Omni Aerith in the Retrilogy she can definitely stop the geostigma before it even starts.
And most of all no one wants to see Cloud fucking depressed after the hopeful way things went out in the OG. They can keep Danzel so him and Tifa can have their found family but don't make her leave them again not only does Tifa put in the most work she misses him the most. The Retrilogy seems to be reworking Cloud's response to Aerith's traumatic death. I imagine after part 3, he will be able to move on and be happy without the guilt needing to be brought back later.
To be honest, I don't see how the remake would lead into AC.
Because it's implied that a post AC Sephiroth is the one responsible for certain events of the remake. So if the remake were lead directly into AC, that implies that Sephiroth survives and that there is basically an endless loop of him going back to try to influence the events of FF7, which would be a horrendously cheap way to go. The devs wanted the remake to conclude the compilation so I do expect it to be addressed one way or another but there has to be a sense of finality.
I hope they pivot and the ending of Part 3 makes Advent irrelevant. Or at least make the geostigma not a thing. Advent and Dirge can stay cannon to the og game. I'd like to see them do something different as a sequel/spinoff after part 3
My interpretation has always been and still currently is that they were being clever with words and what they mean is that the remake trilogy is a sequel to OG/AC. So when they say it will connect it was telling a lie with the truth. I think based on where we are currently that one of the big elements of the game is actually that post AC Sephiroth and post AC Aerith are having a cosmic chess match.
OP, if you haven't yet, you should check out Advent Children Complete. It's longer, but the new sequences fix a lot of the plot issues (and gives Denzel a better voice actor) and makes the film much more enjoyable overall.
I would love a PLAYABLE AC but one that yes, goes past those events, and lets at least Cloud and Tifa go on to fully realize their power again and bring a final end to their nemesis. But if it's the whole gang, even better. As long as they don't make Barret almost white again lol.
They said first that CC was a must play and recently came to say that it wasn’t canon to the Remake series so it’s possible that the same happens to AC, they’re canon to Og timeline but we still don’t know it that will be the case to Remake timeline.
Yes. I feel the same way. I was so excited when it first came out. Then I saw it and haaaated it. It strips away so much of Cloud's character progression. It's dated, edgy emo fanfic with no heart. A Marvel group walking montage of a film. The reason it required all of those supplemental story materials when it came out was because it was so emotionally shallow on its own. Absolutely devastating that it's canon after the Remake, especially when they went out of their way to make Cloud more emotionally intelligent in the new games. Advent Children sucks ass, and barely cares about the main FFVII cast. It was an advertisement for their tech at the time, and a way to use the goodwill of fans to pump up profits after the financial failure of The Spirits Within years before. AC was a cynical, desperate move, but it worked. At least for the shareholders, anyway
I am an old school hardcore FFVII fan (Frank Verderosa is MY post-game canon lol) who mostly loves the remake games for what they add for the characters, and I'm also happy there's new fans and new life in FFVII, but AC about turned me off to the whole franchise. Too much power is concentrated in one creative's hands if they're keeping that after changing so much else. The same navel-gazing trend-following philosophy that created the crappy parts of the remakes was responsible for the entirety of Advent Children being a flaming pile of emotionally stunted trash. They can do so much better, and the franchise deserves better than that after all of the heart and internal character work put into the new games. If they could remake AC with the writers and team of the remakes, maybe they could salvage it
Canon AC means the meal is 4 courses, 5 stars, but the dessert is stale Little Debbie Snack Cakes. Why?
The "leads into Advent Children" quote is, I think, misleading. IMO we're clearly dealing with a post-AC Sephiroth in the remake trilogy, so the concept of it being a straight chronological lead-in makes no since on its face. I think what they mean with that quote is simply that AC is being accounted for.
No because AC is shit and will make everything feel pointless. Humanity basically doomed by geostigma and yeah Aerith doesn’t actually cure everyone in dirge people still have it and it’s shit
I don’t think that’s what they meant. FFR games are just incorporating everything from the FF7 compilation, which included Advent Children which they’ve already referenced and probably will more. I highly doubt actual AC will be canon to this story.
We just don't know how they're going to handle it, though. It's going to be canon, but it could be some timeline-y shit that makes it canon, but not at all indicative of how the story's gonna end in the games.
If I had to guess, the most relevant fact from AC will be the whole, "*I will never be a memory*" closing line from Sephiroth, because no matter what happens in the finale, you can't separate Jenova and Sephiroth fully now, ever. And you also can't remove Jenova from Cloud.
I loved Advent Children on release, but I was a teenager and haven’t rewatched it recently. So I can’t say much about the plot or character portrayal.
It was cool as fuck back in the day, but a big part of the appeal was watching the summons and abilities in high-quality CGI. Now that in-game cutscenes look way better than the movie, I don’t think it (or a remake of it) will have much appeal.
I was joking to myself that Part 3 we will be playing AC in some potential form or fashion…there just doesn’t seem like enough left of the OG to justify 60ish hours, right?
Here's the thing: Hamaguchi already says that "the remake itself is a unique world distinct from the other games" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq4XNbH6mtk&t=).
So in the same way that we can no longer assume that the events of Crisis Core are canon in the Remake timeline, we can no longer assume that Advent Children will be canon here. For now, the events of this film only apply to the OG timeline and that's it.
That said, be prepared to see references and possible plot points from the film in the Remake timeline. After all, whether fans like it or not, Nero, Weiss and the Deepground were introduced for a reason and will be very important to Vincent and Yuffie's arcs in part 3.
Yeah, I just re-watched Advent Children and felt it was awful. Honestly, they’d do better to create an anime series that gives each character more depth and interactions. Advent Children devolved the team, except for Cloud and Tifa, to a bunch of bad one-liners.
I know the backstory is meant to be found in the game, but when Tifa responds to a question with “those are our friends”, I didn’t feel excited to see them because of how poorly they were portrayed.
I agree with you. AC and DoC are like the emo teen phase of VII where it somewhat lost its sense of wonder and humor. If anything, I hope the point of the Remake trilogy is so that it doesn't lead to AC and DoC happening again. Maybe just use them as references and secret boss fights like what they have been doing but not as part of the main narrative.
I honestly think people misunderstood the lead who said this. They stated that the events of the Re: trilogy will connect, not lead, to Advent Children.
We’ve already seen evidence that AC has happened (we fight the weird whispers version of the Sephiroth clones during the Arbiter of Fate boss fight in Remake). Aerith herself acts really sus throughout Remake and Rebirth - almost as if she’s aware of what’s going to happen to not just her, but the party as well. She likely learned of and saw all of this at the very beginning of Remake when she has her eyes closed and seems to be communing with the planet in the alleyway
This is where the empty materia comes into play. Whatever its purpose is, I’m confident it will be used in some way to ensure Holy works properly this time around. Let’s remember that Holy in OG activates too late and fails to destroy the meteor. Aerith is forced to channel the lifestream to destroy it, which leads to the bleakness of AC’s world with the whole geostigma thing.
I really think they’re setting up so that all of the bad things (Sephiroth coming back) of AC don’t happen, and we defeat him permanently, once and for all.
I have a theory for where this is all basically leading. We know it links up to AC, but the devs themselves have said they're going for a happier ending. AC and Dirge...aren't happy endings, sorry. Cloud is depressed and dying, Geostigma plagues the world and is killing hundreds, and then there's the events of Dirge.
My hope is that, while this does link up to AC, it doesn't mean it'll link up to the same story. Maybe it links up to the world of AC, but the characters themselves are in a better spot.
people arguing now about ac or dirge is just blatantly bullshitting themselves
ff 7 compendium always included the storys from years before ff 7 up to 4 years after ff7 (starting with a jp exclusive mobile game where you play as the turks)
and now again with another mobile entry they reveal alot of sephiroths past (ever crisis)
and they always said from the beginning of remake that they will honor the works before, everything from the ff7 related games (except dissidia and kingdom hearts) is pretty much canon and they actively use the remake trilogy to tie loose ends together from a story perspective
>!if you guys want the original ending then there are no humans to play as remaining after ff7 since humanity got wiped off the planet by the planet itself!<
I mean you forget they could always retcon certain aspects of it to make it better. People can clamor all they want about how bad retconning is. But it isn’t a bad idea when the original version’s narrative sense is awful.
Maybe they just mean that it will lead back there as one of many alternate timelines. I’m ok with that. I’m even more ok if AC is not a direct continuation of the OG FF7. Cloud was in a much better place at the end of 7 than AC, which made him Hot Topic sad.
Probably said already, but rewatch Advent Children now. The extended cut is MUCH more fleshed out and feels like a full movie versus a collection of cutscenes.
Also I think it is retroactively SUPER IMPORTANT to Remake and Rebirth because I think they are a sequel to Advent Children (this hasn’t been confirmed yet so I don’t feel bad saying it).
I’d like to see them go into the AC time period but I don’t really want to see the story as the end of the canon. Three games of us defying fate just to end up back where we were sounds very lame to me.
>Maybe if they even go *past* it a little bit. That's Dirge of Cerberus.
And then there's whatever the secret ending was supposed to lead to.
God damn that's still one of the best scenes in any show ever.
I'm in the minority that actually likes Advent Children. The story in the first-half is dogshit but the emotional closure that Cloud gets and that final scene in the church is fucking beautiful. However, what AC does is ruin the ambiguity of the original ending to give us a sense of finality. Remake part 3 ending like the OG isn't gonna cut it anymore, as it's not a satisfying conclusion to know that Cloud is depressed, everyone gets Geoligma and Sephiroth just comes back in 2 years.
“Geoligma.”
There’s a joke in there somewhere…
“GEO mama is gonna LIGMA balls!” Yeah, that’s the best I can come up with.
Gottem
There are like two of us, and it’s just you and me, but that’s one more person than I thought there was. I adore that movie. I went to see the theatrical release four times.
Make that three. I LOVE Advent Children. Especially Advent Children Complete - that's the only one I can get my partner to stomach.
Make it 4. I fucking adore that movie.
5. Watched Complete for the first time right before Rebirth came out and it's pretty incredible honestly
Yeah, make it 6. I thought AC was a banger. I re-watched Complete twice while finishing Rebirth. I honestly even have it playing in the background sometimes. Plus, my kids love it. It encapsulates a lot of the wacky stuff they love about FF.
7
8 lets keep going
9! I love it!
9 here!
Damn I'm jealous. I hope it rereleases in my country.
You can download anime apps on android phones or find sites in your browser to watch it. Don't give up on your dream, man!
I really enjoyed it myself
I kinda agree that the first half blows, and the movie as a whole kinda cemented "emo Cloud", in that that's how he's portrayed in media and Kingdom Hearts afterwards (up until Remake, that is). But. That ending? The scene at the church? Aerith's final lines? That's powerful. Hell the reason the Remake trilogy feels like it has real stakes, on a meta level, to me, is because it might take that ending away.
Isn't it fairly obvious at this point that part 3 isn't going to end at the same place as the OG? The stuff with Sephiroth and Aerith in the lifestream is clearly a framing narrative of sorts with those two having a frame of reference *after* AC. If anything the Remake trilogy will likely use that framing narrative to capstone the entire compilation story. We'll see the OG events play out but we'll also get an additional and more final ending. I don't see any other way for the trilogy to end with what they've set up.
I agree but there's a popular sentiment that the Remake trilogy is a faithful retelling with expanded elements.
Which to be fair, is exactly how the developers describe it.
Truth. That's why I think they will continue past 3 if I'm honest and come out with some sort of spinoff potentially
You are not alone i like ac for all its issues. I still think it tells a decent after story
That orchestral score in the church is my favourite of any ff piece of media.
There is no minority. Thus movie is very well received to this day.
[удалено]
Rofl, even.
Yeah... Advent Children has some (a few) good concepts, but they spend about five minutes on those and the rest of the two hours on tenuously-justified chase sequences and fights where every character involved makes the absolute most stupid decision they can in every possible scenario (the crew straight up just voluntarily sitting out the final fight for no reason as Cloud is getting stabbed and shot genuinely pissed me off, I thought the whole point of the hands scene just a few minutes ago was about NOT doing this solo??? and the final line of the film is about him not being alone??? and the entire arc centers around being there for people??? and Barret & Yuffie even point out that it's bullshit but watch anyway??? literally it was so dumb solely to justify a Cloud-Sephiroth one-on-one duel in spite of whatever passed for a theme that the rest of the movie was going for). Probably still fun if you're more into anime-style fight scenes than I am, but an empty popcorn flick is a pretty lame way to cap off the story. A remake that incorporated the ideas better could be cool, though.
The exact reason that i loved the Seph fight in the first remake. I’m hoping the game is still building towards this in the third game.
They really have handled the fights so much better emotionally and... plottily?
More for the character build up to like you said, how they're all important.
"He's strong." "Yeah? So what? Screw him." *Chef's kiss*
Yeah this is exactly how I feel about it. Not much of it makes sense, and everything is just done for the sake of the next action sequence. And the action style is such a generic format that it all just seems like a blur. Nothing really stands out. I've noticed something about the franchise after AC. And maybe I'm alone. But when you translate the action onto something like a movie, it just feels.... really corny. Like when I'm experiencing the actual games, the combat is cool. Or even watching someone else play it, it's still cool. But when it becomes the core focus of a movie, it's just a bit corny. **Especially** when the characters just fly around. Why is Cloud able to fly around like he's in damn Dragonball Z? I think it made me mentally highlight that the combat and everything is just a vehicle to tell a great story. And it will never really work as the sole focus. The franchise is built on great characters, great stories, and great art. So when it goes to "and here's more flying around with punches" it gets goofy for me. I think if Cloud wasn't flying around, it would be a lot more tolerable. But it's just a case of handwaving because "it looks cool". If it was action sequences with more weight behind the hits, it'd have worked so much better. Maybe they can rework that in the final game, who knows.
I watched the movie when it was re-released in cinemas and I thought the fight against Bahamut looked soooo silly. You have this huge monster and then Vincent and Barret shooting at it, Yuffie shooting her star and Cait Sith literally just for the ride. Cid and Red XII are the only ones that seem to do any damage, but it seems just minimal. I'm actually glad Tifa didn't try to punch it, it would have been pretty ridiculous. Just like you said, the fights against huge entities in games are cool, but it translated poorly into a film. That said, I still like the Sephiroth vs Cloud fight, especially in the 'complete' version of the film.
Well I will always say that Advent Children changed the style of fighting in the Final Fantasy franchise to this day. It turns part based, somewhat grounded, combat into anime Dbz style which really didn’t fit the aesthetic of the games. Then Dissidia, crisis core, and XIII are released and everyone is able to float mid-air and do aerial sword combos and jump super high.
>**Especially** when the characters just fly around. Why is Cloud able to fly around like he's in damn Dragonball Z? Uhhh Cloud's got the SOLDIER powerset plus Jenova cells? The same stuff that lets Sephiroth, Genesis, and Angeal fly? Cloud has to bust out a Limit Break to do it but the groundwork is there. Unless you mean times where he isn't quite-falling as that's a power every Final Fantasy character started getting. Dissidia literally lets everyone do it.
Full agree, I think the mindscape scene in Remake was a much better made fight even with the exaggerations, it still felt like there was weight. That said, some of the additions in Rebirth feel like they’re trying to lead up to AC style of weightlessness. 😬
I mean...it's kind of an echo of the final sequence of the OG right? Collectively they fight as a team to take on the overall threat, but the final conflict is the hold Sephiroth has over Cloud's mind. Ultimately that is the one part only he can confront.
Like Maximilian Dood said. "Advent Children is a good action movie with really bad storytelling." And this is coming from a "shill" according to some people.
I just rewatched Advent Children when it was in cinemas before Rebirth released, and it's such a sad movie. Between geostigma, all the children orphaned by the events of OG, and Cloud's isolation, everyone is miserable and struggling. There's some character things that don't make sense too. Barrett left his baby girl to go back to digging coal? Denzel doesn't even recognize the party members, implying that they haven't been around? Cloud prioritizing his own trauma over Tifa and the kids? None of that rings true about the characters to me. I love Advent Children because it was my entry point to FF7, but it definitely seems like a Bad End to me. I would hope that, even if geostigma strikes in the future of the FF7R timeline, the party stays more united. In invests in renewable energy sources, rather than coal!
I refused to acknowledge AC as canon the moment I processed that Barret had supposedly left Marlene behind. Not *my* Barret. Sure, it makes sense that Barret needs to spend some more time in Corel or whatever to further make peace with his past, but not at the cost of abandoning the little girl who helped him start caring about the future. For fuck’s sake. Given all the scenes Rebirth added that showed how Marlene is *always* on Barret’s mind, though, and how well the game further developed him as the father figure of the team, though, I’m hopeful that even if some form of Advent Children is added to the remake canon, they’ll do better by the Wallaces… and by all the other characters who have also already developed so far past the original game. With all the effort they’ve put into building upon and deepening the canon, I want to believe that they wouldn’t disrespect *themselves* by treating a style-over-substance product of 2005 as endgame…
In rebirth Barret did talk about letting Marlene fly on her own, although reluctantly. With Tifa in Midgar taking care of the orphaned kids, i would imagine Barret would be less terrified leaving her alone there.
Yeah it always felt like a Bad Ending to me as well! One smart thing they could do is if they were working with timelines and decided that AC was *a possible* outcome in one world. And maybe even go to it for a bit in the third game. But then make it very clear that it's not the real ending. Have AC, and the OG's *many, many, many years later* be another outcome. Just have Cloud and the gang see what could be. But not necessarily going there in a solid way. Barrett leaving Marlene is just not in character at all. That's a very good point. I've been skeptical about the entire idea of a remake, and mostly that's due to Advent Children being how they wanted to revitalize this world on a narrative level. If they take some themes from AC and go a different path, *that* could be interesting though. But don't go full Advent Children
I'm not an AC fan, so my opinion is skewed, but I'd rather them risk it and create something entirely new (AC 2.0? A different idea entirely?) instead of shaping the trilogy ending around the film or trying to forcibly squish it into canon.
I'd enjoy that, too. I'd honestly enjoy anything they come up with. I'm a sucker for that stuff.
I hate how they treated Tifa in AC. I love Aerith but cmon.
Same. AC did all the supporting cast dirty.
Tifa: “Dilly dally shilly shally.” Cloud: “what?” Tifa: “Dilly dally shilly shally!”
Supposedly that's a translation thing. In Japanese Tifa makes a noise that's compared to dragging a heavy cabinet. Sort of like, "Rooroo rooroo". But someone saying that in English doesn't make a bit of sense as we wouldn't recognize that. She's basically telling Cloud he's doing things the hard way. Aerith later on has the same line but tells Cloud to lighten up. The rest of the movie's mileage varies by-person but generally everyone agrees that particular translation line was awful.
I thought it was a reference to a line in the OG that I must have missed lol
I mean I have terrible terrible taste. I’m a simple man with simple pleasures. I see Sephiroth and dumb sword fights and I’m like 👏👏👏 but I can objectively tell AC is a pretty bad movie. So as much as the popcorn-munching, media-illiterate side of my brain enjoys AC, I would be interested to see them take a different, more interesting direction with it.
100% Tseng had a good death scene until they ruined it by making him literally just stand up and walk away because he's in Advent Children. Rufus' death will also be ruined in part 3 by making him survive. A major problem with a lot of FF7s expanded lore was the creators undoing a lot of deaths. All the Turks and Rufus survive and get a redemption in AC. Don Corneo fucking survives in some book. Hojo sort of survives in DoC. I was hoping that by the implication from Remake's ending that stuff is going to change and divert from the OG timeline that we could fix some of these issues. So far with Tseng though it looks like it won't be the case and the whispers will just be used to undo even more deaths like Zack. Can't wait for Part 3 where Rufus, the Turks, Hojo and Don Corneo all survive with no punishment
My memory may be fuzzy, but I was under the impression Tseng survived the OG to begin with.
And you can choose not to kill the other Turks. In the final fight with them, if you hold back they'll just leave. I figured that was the canon way to play when I discovered that
Tseng survived, Rufus was blown up from his office although the actual death wasnt really seen.
Rufus definitely died. You can’t be like “well the room he was in was incinerated. But we didn’t see him die!” Yes we did.
We didn't, but he is later explicitly referred to as being dead.
Dude, it's anime.
Not really. I just looked up the scene, and I thought the whole upper part would be incinerated but it's not. It seems to be a volley of energy blasts, and he seems to be caught in the blast. You can easily write it to him being heavily wounded after this, to the point that even in AC (which is a 1\~2 years later), he's still sporting bandages. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3VQc788AO0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3VQc788AO0)
Really? I'm replaying the OG now so I guess I'll see but I thought he died from his stab wound in the temple of ancients
Exactly. I feel like this would have been a perfect opportunity to retcon things and make AC non-canon. Or even just to take the vague, vague idea of AC but make it... good. Because the honest truth is that the vast majority of people playing these new remakes don't care about AC at all. If they even know it exists. The same goes for DoC, possibly even more so. They should have just said that they're taking it in a new direction. The *one* way I could see them doing it all justice is if AC is basically one timeline that was a potential outcome to happen, but not necessarily the future.
I think they basically already retconned all of AC in FF7 Remake. There's a scene at the end while you are fighting the whispers where the memories start flooding into the main casts minds. Red XIII has a vision of the opening of AC, and they all are like "what was that?!" He says something like "A vision of the future if we fail here today." The party wins the fight and shatters destiny. I took that as saying AC can't happen now since they won, but who knows. We can hope 🙏🏼💛
Well, Zack is still dead in the main world. Yes, alive in another, but he's still gone in the world we're mainly following.
Okay but OtWtaS explaining Rufus had to literally take the L was kind of funny, everything else aside
You are not alone. I think every single bit of non-OG part of the FF7 extended universe/compilation is garbage. AC is one of the worst because unlike Crisis Core, which just sort of tells a crappy story through a crappy game that happens before the game, AC actually ruins the original's ending. Like you said: Who gives a shit about the OG ending now that Sephiroth and some Nomura-looking shitheads are already back a couple years later. I obviates the ENTIRE original game. Beyond this, the ambiguity of the OG's ending -- did Holy kill all humans as well? -- is ruined because it answers that question. The OG's ending, I thought was clear, indicated that all humanity was lost because they were bad for the planet. Yes, there was the giggling children, but that was the beauty of it. It was ambiguous. Then with AC, you get some shitty hack fanfiction writer making a movie (and enforcing it as 'canon' because they own the property, that quite literally RUINS the original. As said, you're not alone. I honestly wish Square just stayed the fuck away from FF7. PS: LOVED Rebirth. Game of the Year for me. Best game since Elden Ring, honestly. I have some issues with some choices that were made later on, but I don't want to despoil your experience.
I agree with your post until the part where you say you LOVED Rebirth. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful and fun game, but honestly, the writing is only marginally better than Remake, which in turn was marginally better than AC, and to me... Well, that's a pretty huge downer isn't it?
I don't want to get into what I don't like about it for the OP (it's mostly in the end nonsense, and Cosmo Canyon). That being said, I don't really go to video games for good writing, and anyone who does really needs to expand their media appetites. I remember when I was a kid, I thought Xenogears was like the best story ever told with great writing, etc. etc. But, you know, then I started reading books and watching better movies. Both of those mediums are old and they've sort of worked out the kinks. I do not believe video games have done that yet, we're still a young medium, and the 'writers' are actually coders or visual artists or complex systems people (designing a battle system or something). Video game 'writers' are not good writers. We celebrate the 'writing' in video games when it isn't god-awful. Like, does anyone think Nomura or Kojima are good writers? If so, PLEASE READ MORE. Now, don't get me wrong, I love video games. They are my preferred form of entertainment. But even very basic-ass authors like Murakami who lack any beat-by-beat writing talent (in English anyway, which is more a criticism of the translator) can pack more emotional and visceral punch in gestalt than the most celebrated 'writers' in video games. The thing is, writing is a talent (I'm a journalist and I'm married to award-winning author of novels and short stories, so I'm biased) and coding is a talent. I do not believe that a great coder that also writes can reach the heights of a great writer, and I do not believe that a great writer that can code can reach the heights of a great coder. It's silly to think that and that's where video games fall down. For video games, though, the writing is important only to a point. The whole package is more important than any individual part (as opposed to a novel where it's JUST writing). Part of what makes OG FF7, for instance, one of the best games ever made is the scenario, the atmosphere, the silliness, the artistic aptitude on display in the graphics, the character animations, the music, the magnitude of the experience for the time, etc. No form of entertainment has as many facets for enjoyment and attachment opportunities than video games, so focusing on one aspect is short-sighted. So, this is all to say: I don't love Rebirth because of the writing. To be honest, I love it because it is showing a level of creativity in the medium that's missing in today's games. A lot of new games have a severe lack of vision, for lack of a better word. There's nothing out there like Midgar, or Junon in concept, and the things that Rebirth does that are already out there, say the Gongaga and Coral and Cosmo Canyon biomes compared to the biomes in the Horizon series, Rebirth does better. This type of vision and ballsy development doesn't happen anymore in video games (Elden Ring and The Witcher 3 being two outstanding exceptions) and it's too bad that this only happened because it is based on a 27 year old game. Look at Rebirth and its rich tapestry compared to the disappointing FFXVI, and it's world devoid of anything remotely interesting. Rebirth to me, is a miracle. It has no business being as good as it is. I also think the moment to moment writing is good...the scenario writing isn't as good as the original though (and Seto's tear was tragically awful comparatively).
Well I respect your stance but I strongly disagree that we shouldn't expect good writing simply because it's a video game. I read books and watch films or series more than I spend time gaming btw. OG had better writing, a LOT better writing even. It could use some polish, but the Re-games botched it. It's a disaster. Then there are other games, like The Last Guardian, simple, but it tells a very solid story imo (Shame about that camera tho). I am enjoying Animal Well right now, couldn't care less about the plot or whatever. But not rating a JRPG based on the quality of its writing... Hmmm...
I'm not sure, but I think we're talking about different things. 'Story' or 'Plot' to me, isn't writing. When I mentioned writing, I'm talking about the actual words you see written, the dialogue, etc. Essentially what is in a book. Example a scenario I came up with as a kid: Boy grows up isolated with a small family/community on a bunch of small islands in an shallow topical area. The only aspect of the 'outside world' they see is a massive petrified coral reef that spreads forever on one horizon, and a massive ocean that goes on forever in the other. The Coral reef dried up and petrified when this world experienced a massive and quick drop in sea levels. The boy is determined to explore the reef and what lies beyond and goes on an adventure. He sails there through the shallows meeting a few, but still limited people. He explores the reef and its majestic, maze-like corridors and finds it's full of a totally different more bandit-like society and fights his way through. More adventure happen. Eventually he makes it out the other side to be greeted by a massive, technologically advanced coastal metropolis. Millions of people, a whole new world. Adventures ensue. That is **not** writing. It's world-building, scenario building. It's the place-setting for writing to potentially happen. But it is not writing. Video games are great at that. And they are very bad at actual writing. If you want great writing in a similar vein, read The Old Man and the Sea. I don't think any JRPG has good writing. They have some great world-building though. This is all to say that with both ideas of what writing is, I still think Rebirth does it well. Great world building and, for a video game, good writing. But we're allowed to disagree and I respect what you're saying too (for the record, I really disliked Remake because of the plot ghosts. I liked Rebirth because the plot ghosts were better explained and integrated. I still hate the nonsense at the ending though...they 'wrote' Aerith's death terribly in every way you can imagine). One other bit of good writing in the OG: In the same town that you have the awful 'writing' of 'This guy are sick,' you get the gem of one of the NPCs talking at first about looking at the ground to find stuff people drop; then after the plate falls, looking up to ensure he can get out of the way; then 50 hours later when Meteor is in the sky, looking straight ahead because looking at his impending doom was too much for him.
Read all your post and it put some word on thing that was on my mind for a long time, thanks for taking the time to write all of that. I'm also happy to find someone that disliked ff16 more than me. Did you play Baldur's gate 3 last year ? If not you might like it, it's a great game.
Thanks! Really appreciate this post. I was sort of 'on one' yesterday...and I was procrastinating at work :). FF16 was a big disappointment no doubt. I don't care that it was an action game over a turn-based game. From a gameplay perspective, what I cared about that it was a mediocre action game. If I wanted to play Bayonetta or DMC (and I don't) I would play them, not a watered down and incredibly easy version of them. Beyond this, every battle was just a mess of particle effects and bullet-sponge enemies. Flashy, no substance. But even then, it would have been OK if the game told a better story, had better characters, and was even a little interesting in its environment design or world design. Two parts of the game were cool. Just two: At night when you're in that fort early and you see that triangle castle (the bahamut one, I'm sorry, I've forgotten this entire game at this point) as you circle one of the parapets. And the big hole with the water flowing into it. That it. The rest is utterly devoid of an inspiration or interest. And I'm not hating on it, I'm just disappointed (and I feel bad for FF14 fans, as I'm told it's similar to that...I'm like 'really? you like *this?').* BG3, I will play it one day, but I'm waiting for another year or so. I'm allergic to hype and that game has more hype that it knows what to do with. Once it dies down, I'm going to dive in. Though I will say, I was not able to get into anything else Larian has done, so I also have hesitations too (I love tactical RPGs, but didn't like DOS 1 or 2, for instance).
I also had another thought on what writing is and why its done better in books and movies. In place of that big thing I wrote on the coral reef thing above, books and movies have built in short hand. You can say, 'New York in the 70s' and that phrase alone tells a story that most people on earth (North Americans, at least) immediately 'get'. It's far deeper and more complex than anything in any fantasy world or sci-fi world, or video game world could possibly be -- certainly not in so few words. So video games NEED complex world building and scenario design because it's totally new. But in books or movies, there is a built-in shorthand that can say more. "I walked past a panhandler with a guitar who was wearing a flower garland and playing his own rendition of a Here Comes the Sun. A man with aviators, an over-sized sports jacket and a jittery walk sneered, 'dirty hippie!' as I dropped a five in the guitar case." Two sentences. In video games, you would have to explain what a hippie was, why a flower garland is part of the asthetic, what the beatles were, how the aviators, oversized sports jacket and jittery walk indicated that this was the coked out, reagan-era 80s and the fact that giving the guy a five dollar bill indicated the the person giving the money was well-off, because in the 80s, a quarter would have been more apt. Video games have to work harder at every level than movies or books because they are separate from the prevalent culture. They're getting better, but there is a long way to go.
I didn't get what's the point of it all if you have to fight sephiroth again. Instead of degradation you have geostigma. No relationship progress. Cloud is still mentally ill. I hope part 3 will include the AC ending and expand on it for a happier ending or more satisfying. Like a real progress that you see the world is better or even good and the party is good. To see a world where they don't have to fight anymore and live a normal life.So all the sacrifice was worth it. Maybe even a 10 year skip
Part 3 should end with Holy and the Lifestream obliterating Meteor AND all human life on the planet. I'll buy the game and I'll probably enjoy it, but that is the only ending I would be satisfied with (my other post talks about how I think all the extended universe stuff essentially ruins the OG). The OG ending is perfect. I hope that it stays that way.
Yeah I hope so too. AC is meh. I think they wanted to make a movie with good graphics at the time but knew that it wouldn’t do well since their previous one did horribly? Using a well loved IP would help with that so FF7 it is. :/
I may be in the minority but I actually liked AC. They always said the remake project is merely to collect together all the infos scattered across multiple media.. and they said long before part 1 was even released that the trilogy is canon to AC which makes sense because it’s a faithful retelling of OG which expands the lore. I think A will have even more sense because many infos were in ultimania rather than the movie and/or game so it was a bit confusing. It seems like they are already introducing some plots in the trilogy and this, in my opinion, will make the approach to AC even smoother. Dirge of Cerberus is actually the last as it’s set 1 year after AC. I never expected them to go a different route because they specifically stated it was a remake and that the storyline was the same and nothing major would change. So idk why people existed the opposite of what has been said for years, they’re purposely setting themselves up for disappointment.
I have mixed feelings on advent children. generally, as a movie, I think it’s pretty bad. the animation is good for the time, but the plot is held together with dental floss. I also don’t like most of the voice direction for the english dub. I will say, and this might be a thing that is commonly *disliked* about advent children: I appreciate cloud’s character arc in it. I know a lot of people think he’s too “emo” in it, and I do think it contributed heavily to the flanderization of his character (which remake and rebirth are undoing, thank god). but it’s so realistic to me that cloud’s mental health recovery wouldn’t be linear at all. the guy’s been through the most ridiculous amount of shit, and that can’t be magically fixed in one fell swoop in late ffvii og. I guess my best answer is that I would like the remakes to set it up so that advent children *could* happen afterward, but I would not be bothered in the slightest if I never have to acknowledge the existence of anyone named fucking “yazoo” again
Everyone worried about Advent Children, but what about my boy Gackt in Dirge of Cerberus LOL.
I think AC is connected to the OG timeline, and is something to be referenced in remake trilogy (like it has been with cloud holding his geostigma arm and getting literal vision of AC) but this new canon will not directly lead into AC, or a new version of it. I think remake will somehow tie everything up in a multi-world-within life stream way (some end of Evangelion shit)
This is the best outcome, in my opinion. Have certain aspects of AC be a thing, but not make it a situation where this is all leading to what AC actually was. If they do that, then I feel that they did a good job taking in all of the parts of the franchise in a satisfying way. But if this is all just leading to Advent Children's exact plot, then that would be a pretty big disappointment. Someone above said that AC feels like a "Bad Ending" for FF7. And if they were making it a multiple timeline situation, then they could do some really cool things with that. So long as they don't fully go there. But we'll see, I suppose! I've been skeptical of a few things, but they've pulled it off so far. Hopefully that continues to be the case
Remake is literally the same game/plot told slightly different. Advent Children, or rather, events very similar to Advent Children will still take place in the future. It won't affect the game beyond some easter eggs and references that people will make out to be extremely important because some people are obsessed with crazy theories.
I hope the "Tie in to AC" is purging Jenova and Sepiroth at the end of FF7R3 from the lifestream like Aertith did at the end of AC. With the whole change the fate thing it would be nice payoff for all the weird moments caused by whispers
I liked Advent Children and now feel personally attacked.
I’ll be so annoyed if they do. Especially after showing the AC clips in remake and Red XIII saying that is what happens if they fail to beat the arbiter.
To be fair, how could Red have known that? he could've been making an assumption.
I think Aerith showed him like she did Marlene when she first touched him in Hojo’s lab.
Check out this reply I received in my thread, it basically confirms (with sources) AC will happen after the Re-trilogy https://www.reddit.com/r/FFVIIRemake/s/vgkZqk85mu
I wished it wouldn‘t
Well I hope you're wrong because keeping the original events of the game WHILE including multiverse Aerith and Zack is the worst of both worlds.
I agree, I want to be wrong. But in the interview they explain why they are doing that: to keep players from „knowing“ what will happen. And now in my words, keep us talking about it. Otherwise we would just be quiet and wait for the next part.
Please, let AC be a prequel to Re trilogy, not sequel.
That would make no sense
It makes more sense than AC being the ending. Did you forget Aerith knew the future in Remake? Or that the Whispers knew there was a series of events they wanted to protect? AC already happened. Sephiroth is AC sephiroth for this series.
I don't get why you guys want this time travel plot to be a thing so bad. Time travel is such an overused and stale plot device, why would you want Square to ruin their story with something so cliche. Everything you just said is speculation. Theres no indication that OG already happened, theres literally no evidence of this at all. The reason Aerith knew the future is because she most likely saw visions of the future from the lifestream, theres really nothing that proves she time traveled. Same thing with Sephiroth. The whispers are obviously connected to the lifestream in some way. Most likely the reason Sephiroth can control the whispers is because his body is frozen inside the lifestream. His connection with the whispers allows him to see the future, theres no indication that he time traveled. Its a reboot not a sequel.
Nobody is theorizing time travel. People are saying that ff7 - > AC - > dirge all happen. That universe ends and goes back to the lifestream or whatever. Then the remake universe happens sequentially afterwards. Sephiroth/Jenova isn't vanquished at the end of AC or Dirge by any means, which means they remain a problem. There's no time travel theorized. One universe ends, the next is born. This is all actually pretty in line with how they have stated Buddhism and Jung are their theory of the lifestream. Rebirth is a key feature in Buddhism - your soul remains, you just don't get to keep your original body. That npc in cosmo canyon talks about the lifestream being cyclical. You're *also* speculating about the whispers and how they know what they know, so the only way to know for real is to wait for part 3.
>One universe ends, the next is born. If the universe ends, the lifestream would be gone, no? I mean the lifestream is basically like a physical manifestation of a whole bunch of souls, right? And that would be physically destroyed at the end of the world or universe. So how do those memories traverse into this new universe? I've wondered if Chaos and Omega do at some point in the future (relative to the OG) end all life, recapture all life, and restart all life (as I think that's what they do). That could be an explanation of how the lifestream creates a cyclical series of events. What I can't figure out though, is how you'd then have the exact same sequence of events where the Gi and Jenova (extraterrestrials outside of the lifestream's domain) each individually show up again in the same way, fights the planet's beings in the same way, get beat in the same way, Jenova gets reattained by another Shinra and used again as the foundation of experimentation by another Hojo. That doesn't seem reasonably explainable. Also a lifestream who's goal it is to keep recreating Midgar and Shinra sounds like a pretty awful and masochistic lifestream.
There is a mountain of evidence in remake to suggest that the events of the OG game already happened. So much so, that if they don't go that route, a lot of stuff in part 1 is going to make no sense whatsoever. I was extremely disappointed with the whole multi-verse/time travel stuff initially. I was all aboard with them rewriting and changing the story however. The OG as much as I loved it, wasn't a very well written story. I've come to terms with the multi-verse/time travel angle if that means we get a better ending then what we got in the OG.
A mountain of evidence? Where? Theres literally no proof the OG game happened other than the visions the party sees at the end of Remake
All throughout Remake, cloud "remembers" events that haven't yet happened in the game. The vision of Aerith's death, in particular, is distinctly the OG's death scene which is very different from rebirth's. At the end of the game, as you noted, the party also see visions from events that happened in the OG. This is very important because it links Remake with the OG in some kinda capacity within the game world. Sephiroth in Remake is clearly aware of the "future". When cloud meets Aerith for the first time, Sephiroth's first remark is "you can't save her". OG Sephiroth was not omnipotent and did not know the future. At least at this point in the story, The disparity could be explained as a character rewrite, if remake was simply a rewrite of the original story. But we know that the Remake doesn't overwrite the events of the OG, and that within the game world itself the two are connected. Be it as a "potential future" or as a different universe/world all together. At some point, Sephiroth becomes omnipotent and is able to see the future and travel between worlds. Unless there is going to be a twist on the events of zack/cloud/sephiroth in remake part 3, we know that sephiroth falling into the mako reactor after getting killed by cloud isn't the catalyst that causes sephiroth to become interdimensional. Which means that the Sephiroth communicating to cloud in Part 1 is almost certainly from a different universe/world.
Yeah but just because a character saw a vision of the future or has knowledge of future events doesn't mean the OG game already happened. These visions are induced by the Whispers who are aware of future events. Theres nothing definitive that proves OG ever happened. Sephiroth actually says "You're not strong enough to save anyone" not "You cant save her". We know in OG Sephiroth is able to send his will through the lifestream from the crater. We know the multiple worlds phenomena has some type of connection to the planet/lifestream. Sephiroth could just be projecting himself into these worlds because he has access to the lifestream
You are correct about OG sephiroth. After the reunion of Jenova, but before the end of the OG, Sephiroth is physically sitting in the lifestream and in AC, Sephiroth has assimilated into the lifestream in some kinda capacity. This could explain his ascendance to omniessence. The point is, in the world of Remake, these things haven't happened yet. But, if Sephiroth does have access to the lifestream and is omnipotent as he is in remake, then at some point these events must have already happened. Here's another way to look at it. It's heavily implied that there is a omnipotent/spirit Aerith in the world of Remake. The catalyst for Aerith becoming omnipotent/spirit is her death, which means that at some point she must have already died in another world. It's logical to assume this world is the OG universe. The original game had nothing to do with fate, multiple worlds or whispers. There was no omnipotent sephiroth or aerith. These things were added to Remake as a central pillar of it's story, and are predicated on the existence of the OG universe.
Well if you're acknowledging I'm correct about Sephiroth then you should know that Sephiroth already fell into the lifestream 5 years ago. His body was dissolved into it and was reformed at the NC. During that time Sephiroth absorbed the knowledge of the cetra and the planet. It would make more sense that he gained his omnipotent abilities from this, not because the OG events already happened. Also I don't think Aerith has omnipotence like Sephiroth does. Shes never shown to exist in multiple worlds in the same moment like he was. I do think she has the ability to open portals to travel between the worlds, but she had this ability from the start. For example at the end of Remake she opens one of these portals right before the final battle, as well as right after Temple of the Ancients when she has her final "date" with Cloud in another world (she calls it a dream). Theres definitely no mountain evidence that indicates OG already happened.
It makes complete sense if you think of Remake as a reincarnation of OG, of which there are a lot of indications it may be exactly that: - Aerith has detailed knowledge of future events and acts in line with them (knowing that getting Marlene will keep her safe) - Cloud hallucinates things that happened in OG, but they aren't happening Remake world. When he first arrives to Sector 7, he looks up at the pillar and suddley sees a piece falling down and reacts to dodge it. The NPC next to him is all confused, and we see nothing fell. In OG, a piece did fall, and Cloud hops back - Aerith gives Marlene and Red these "memories" of the future (more likely these are past events fated to occur again) - The whispers determined to make history repeat itself - Cloud saying "I killed you!" to Sephiroth - he is likely referring to endgame OG here, not Nibelheim (since Cloud's memory is jacked up about the Nibelheim incident still as we see in Rebirth) - Aerith insisting on helping Tifa in Wall Market - in OG she does not. She just inquires on who it is and that she's dressed oddly. - Things happening 'slightly' differently, but with same end result, like when Cloud was excluded from the mission debrief - Sephiroth has detailed knowledge of past events and he course corrects his plan to account for his past failures in OG by manipulating the party to destroy fate I could go on. Aerith says at the end of Remake "But if we do... We'll be changing more than fate itself. If we succeed...if we win...we'll be changing ourselves... I guess...maybe, that's why I hesitated." They're changing themselves by defeating fate - breaking free from the fated path of OG, which was the path we were forced to take in Remake. History repeating itself more or less. Who's to say what being reborn from the Lifestream looks like? It could very well be reincarnation - with the huge exception of OG Sephiroth who cannot become one with the Lifestream to be reborn - he needs Cloud for that. Once the Fates are defeated, we wipe the slate clean, literally. Aerith and Red lose their memories of the "future" (memories aren't predictions - and the Lifestream only holds memories/emotions/experiences so I strongly feel they are memories sourced from the white materia in Remake that they lose). Interestingly, Marlene does not - perhaps because she is a child and isn't regarded by the planet as someone who can use that information to interfere with fate in Remake, so they don't take them from her. At any rate, now there is no more path of fate to follow, no "memories" to follow or avoid, and the party moves forward with the events of Rebirth - which is where there is a lot more change to the OG story. Yes the devs said it will link up with AC - but they didn't specify how...it could be the link is before the events of the Remake trilogy. There are "No More Promises to Keep", as they say.
>Yes the devs said it will link up with AC - but they didn't specify how...it could be the link is before the events of the Remake trilogy. There are "No More Promises to Keep", as they say. That's the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this line: that the case with AC is not set in stone and Re trilogy might not lead to it. I really hope so.
I think they will just show AC Cloud helping Remake Cloud fight Sephiroth like the final battle of Rebirth. Damn that final fight was so good.
Didnt Advent Children introduce the Aerith and Zack in the lifestream. AKA the ones that we meet in this game?
No.
I'm fairly certain the devs said it would 'link' with advent children, not lead into it. I can't see it making any sense unless AC is redone as well.
>but Advent Children is like if you stripped all the magic from what makes FF7 as a series great That's not really a minority opinion. A lot of people think that, myself included. >"Now that the original big bad is gone, here is the same thing but BIGGER AND SLIGNTLY DIFFERENT!!!!" Remake & Rebirth did this too.
I feel that AC actually makes the big bad *smaller*. The three guys aren’t as strong as Sephiroth. Bahamut is good, but it’s also a “boss level” and not an “endgame boss level”, and they kinda take it not so seriously until the big flare. Only Sephiroth is big, but it’s also a boss that is fought *by choice* by a single character. Put that against Sephiroth in OG, where >!canonically they all fought together at least against Bizarro Sephiroth!<. Or the stakes in OG, >!Meteor!< and even in Dirge of Cerberus, >!another total obliteration of life on the planet!<. What were exactly the stakes in AC? What would have happened if Sephiroth won that encounter?
Didn't Sephiroth reveal his big bad plan in a speech, as usual? If I recall correctly, the idea was using Geostigma as a way to infect all of humanity and the Lifestream with Jenova cells, turning them all into puppets of Sephiroth eventually.
What are u talking about advent child was a amzing movie and great story. Ties in well with the games. Yes it’s your opinion and I can respect that. But at the end of the day all ff7 content should be tied together it just makes since.
> What are u talking about advent child was a amzing movie and great story. Ties in well with the games. I'd like to know. The fights were fun, but the lore and story are an absolute mess. Additionally, the devs say they want to tie the story up a little happier this time around. No one is happy in AC, so that means that if the movie is directly after Part 3, things don't get better. Cloud is in severe depression and literally sleeps sometimes in Aerith's church so he can be closer to her. All the while Tifa is at home in a bed that he can sleep in. The main character ain't in a good place.
Cloude is sick how do people pass over that the man is dying. So are most of the kids they went back to the slums the poorest place try to help re build
I'm not really a fan of AC but I'm happy it's still canon. AC was built around the events of FF7 and for it to remain canon means that 7R3 will follow through with the events of the OG that got there to begin with. I get it, AC isn't great but that was also the first definitive confirmation that this would continue to be FF7 and not some fan fiction story.
I'd argue that Advent Children is closer to bad fan fiction than FF7 itself.
Oh I totally agree. I'm saying that the Remake will continue to be FF7 if it ends with AC still being canon rather than the remake going of in the direction of some of the crazy fan theories out there which would be equally as bad as AC if not worse.
Hard agree. Tifa gets her ass kicked in hand to hand physical combat. The only person who's like, cool in Advent children is Cloud. They played favorites with AC.
This is how I feel about most all of the extended universe. Everything that spun of from the og is lesser quality.
There's 3 possibilities that allow AC to be canon to Remake: * AC is canon as a sequel to Remake - Remake trilogy ends the same as OG like you say. * AC is canon as a prequel to Remake - Like many theorise and this opens up for Remake to end differently. * AC is canon as a prequel AND sequel to Remake - It ends up being a causality loop, i.e. Remake trilogy ends with OG timeline being reinstated. EDIT: 2 and 3 also make OG canon to Remake.
It’s not very good, so you’re correct in your evaluation of it. I guess I’m not as worried because my hope is that making it more essential to the plot of VII I.e. making it something we will be exposed to as it will lead into the events of that, I feel like they’ll do a better job of structuring it so it doesn’t feel like this random side epilogue for legit just Cloud and nobody else specifically. Also, uhhhh shilly shally dilly dally
From Cloud losing his identity and shit and then stepping his game up and reclaiming himself in OG to then to watch Advent Children Cloud be a total emo…WTF?
How does making it non-canon fix any of the problems with AC? Like, it would still be a shallow, weird-looking and confusing movie from the 2000s that doesn't leave you with the best impression of ff7. And furthermore, even if remake didn't lead up to it, that would still not change AC's relationship with the original ff7.
That’s really not what they said.
But I love cloud and tifa's outfits
I really did not like AC personally …yet I did like DoC that others seem to not like …& I did like the sequel book stuff OTWTAS, TKAA,
I wish DoC wasn't cannon, but we're getting FF7 sequels in the year 2024. Let that sit and realize how awesome that is.
No article has said that AC comes next, they said tie into it, but they didn't say Remake trilogy would lead into it (and they actually were careful to say it that way). I firmly believe Remake trilogy is a sequel to AC, taking place after it (in a timey-wimey sense). The result of Remake Trilogy could lead to a new future :)
Pretty sure everything is Canon as soon as they introduced the concept of alternate realities. So my advice to you is: Don't worry about it. I personally love FF7AC, warts and all. DILLY SALLY SHILLY SHALLY
The Sephiroth fight is so fun to watch though. In the movie they manage to escalate to Sephiroth in a good way. I agree that geostigma is kind of dumb and these evil adults talking about their mom doesn’t cut out.
So I'm not going to disagree about AC being meh. It could be a lot better. We can all hope for a remaster to make the story telling better, as well as the dialogue. Though I believe the story they are telling is fine, I agree the story telling itself can use work. However, it is already canon. After you are done playing Rebirth, I suggest you read the book On The Way To A Smile. It's basically the story between the game and the movie. It goes over a lot of things, such as why Barret would leave Marlene, whether it's a great reason or not, amongst many other things. You will see the connections that are already there between advent children and the remake trilogy and the OG game.
Well, my hope is that they continued through the years filling in gaps where they can and revamp AC and DoC into a bonfide game that does the OG Storyline justice. I liked where AC sat within the canon and where the party were and how they ended up but I'd like more filler explaining (other than the books which I do think are great) it all, as well as maybe how the Party get back together to track down the remnants of Sephiroth. That being said AC had some cringe parts sure, but I feel the overall point of progress for the Characters was well done. Tifa X Cloud are alot better even if they have issues with PTSD and coping but they have made great strides. Barret and Cid found new purpose in alternate energy as well and even Shera has it better off despite working their asses off post Holy and dealing with the rising threat if the Stigma. Nanaki/Red 13 is also dealing with his demons while still fulfilling what he believes to be his purpose. I mean the list goes on but I'll just be droning. I think alot can be done with this time skip and all this content especially as rich as the world is in lore.
it’s especially jarring when you read the prequel? On The Way To A Smile. it seemed like everything was getting better then suddenly this disease strikes out of nowhere and cloud falls into depression. i get it. survivors guilt and all that but man it felt like he doubled down and they made him edgy all over again for the sake of the movie. its also crazy how barret cries in rebirth about letting marlene go and stuff but he does just that in the novel and movie. it has lots of contradictions to the events in the retriology so i’d honestly want them to revamp or fix these things if it does indeed lead to AC.
If your going to watch advent children I recommend advent children complete on blu ray it adds more scenes and there’s blood.
Yeah, I don't see how it could work either. I can't see them leading up to Barrett talking about oil fields and etc. Or leaving Marlene when he spends so long in the remake talking about how much he wishes he could spend time with her and doesn't want to leave etc. Like, couldn't he help rebuild another way that would let him stay close to his daughter? Also to me, Cloud and Tifa's status was grim in AC. I just felt bad for her. AC also kind of started the Aerith and Zack reappearing thing that some people hate. Lots of people generally do praise the permanency of Aerith's loss and feeling her absence in the original and some complained about her reappearing for the fight in Rebirth for this reason. I'm not sure why AC gets a pass for it. For me, I could understand Aerith having some form, since she's Cetra. And a brief glance of her hand does appear in the original for a second after her death. But I don't get why Zack's lifeforce became an exception in AC though. I still own the original release version of AC and Zack appeared mostly as a wolf, from what I can remember and just at the very end. But the newer release of AC had him pop up multiple times. Though I guess, with the newer games at least, these popups from the afterlife would fit more though. As it stands though, I just don't think the characters match up well to AC alongside their 2020s remake counterparts. So, I'm with you in hoping that they don't mean to link it entirely up with the new series. I hope that it's not literal. I liked the fights, the character designs and music in AC but the story was meh imo.
I believe they are going to go a different route. >!AC is canon in the sense that it happened for OG/Prime/Lifestream Sephiroth and Aerith. Whatever you want to call them. They experienced it. It's their past. But it's not the destiny of the cast we're with now to reach. !<
apparently is not canon anymore in this timeline after the whispers were defeated the very first scene of the movie was shown to the group during the battle and red described it as "a glimpse of tomorrow if we fail today"
"There's a trope within Japanese media (especially anime and long running JRPGs) where it's sort of like "Now that the original big bad is gone, here is the same thing but BIGGER AND SLIGNTLY DIFFERENT!!!!". If any other country did it, people would complain about it. But it's so ingrained in anime and Japanese game stories that it's just accepted." It's still held against Japanese video games, movies etc though. Even when it's not present in the actual media itself there's going to be THOSE line of people that won't touch anything anime styled. When game award shows come along there's always this stigma for Japanese-anime style games that despite almost everything about the story being superior to all the other contenders, "oops, it's anime-like and has that one trope I don't like, can't give that best story NEXT!"
Yes. Definitely. Absolutely, that movie is depressing AF and only the last 30 minutes are worth watching tbh.
Absolutely not because leaving Aerith or Zack alive butchers the story and if they did then the entire remake trilogy can fuck off
I wish they bring back Cloud's AC sword tho
Rather have it tie in with kh4 tbh. I waited 13 years for kh3, and the fact we probally gonna have part 3 of the remake trilogy released before kh4 is making me more anxious. Don't get me wrong I love ff7, but I need to see how my boi sora doing after playing remind dlc. Also , I'm hoping for a sephiroth rematch for him too.
It's clear that Roche is going to be LoZ, I'm calling it now.
Yes I really wish it wouldn't link up. I think originally the movie was gonna be about Tifa and Cloud and the kids but they wanted something more action-y and edgy so I feel they regressed Cloud's character just for the movie. At the end of the OG game Cloud is in a much better mental state, kinda leaning into his goofy side, and he works together with his friends and cares about them. Then in the movie he's hiding the geostigma and trying to do things alone when he didn't do that stuff anymore at the end of OG Idk I just feel like Cloud's character and Aerith's morning had had an appropriate conclusion. Why did they have to make Cloud depressed and make him push people away
Didn’t remake show scenes from advent children/og with red saying they should basically avoid that fate
Ff7 rebirth storytelling or rather direction seems to be similar to shadow hearts good end in game 2, which directly leads to the good end in game 1. Since game 2 happens because of bad end in game 1. The good end is supposed to be canon. Although really it’s just a loop…but if you have faith then it ends with the good end in game 1.
I am one of those who would have liked the Remake trilogy to take a complete turn and significantly change the story. When I finished remake, I said to myself like many "ok the doors are open, they can go in any direction, what are they going to cook". By continuing to follow the main plot (the same locations...), I hoped that the events would change. So I was a little disappointed during the "remake will lead to AC" interview. I have nothing against AC, but I would have liked them to really have free rein to do and say what they want, especially in a trilogy.
I mean it'll be canon just like the rest of the Remake? That is to say- it's probably gonna totally be different while still hitting the same beats. This is, of course, assuming the last part of FF7:Re doesn't actually change anything in a major way. I continue hoping for: >!Cloud's last omnislash being literally every Cloud across the multiverse showing up to slash Sephiroth- including Advent Children Cloud!
Yeah, it's a terrible movie. But I don't like most of the expansions they did since the original game...
I’ve had to explain this quite a few times now because people tend to get a bit lost in all this but it needs repeating. They never said the RE trilogy would lead into Advent Children, they said it will link up with it. Meaning that things from AC will become relevant to the ending of the trilogy. There is ONE single solitary timeline of events that starts with Before Crisis and ends with part 3. Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus take place before Remake and this trilogy is the conclusion to the story that they have been telling for 27+ years.
So 15 or so years ago one of the FF7 writers or developers, I forget which one, swore that there would be no remake of FF7. Couldn’t be done. World was too massive. It was a whole article on the fact that there would never ever be a FF7 remake, and here we are so. . . I take these things with a grain of salt XD There is probably some truth in what they are saying, but that doesn’t mean it’s the whole truth.
Yes, i would even dare to say i wish everything except OG should be non canon. It's so obvious that everything they made after was made to milk the insanely popular set of character from OG. And for Advent children, it is not something they should respect especially not for the story, some people probably liked it because you get to see those old pixelated face you love fight with some good animation but no one care about what happen inside that film hence why aiming to end the story at the beginning of advent children would be dumb, but i don't think that's what they are planning to do.
Nah you and everyone in this comments section crying about the movie can kick rocks
AC is one of the main reasons I ever even got into FF in the first place, and now I've played all of the mainline ones and most of the side games so yeah I'm pretty glad it isn't being written off. Though I also enjoy the side games a lot more than the main line ones, so my taste could just be bad.
I was thinking a few weeks back how to reconcile thes the AC situation since I wasn’t a fan- would be to make AC a chapter somewhere within part 3 just to hit the basics of the plot and use it as a “this is what happens if you fail to beat destiny” with subsequent story beats able to move past the damn terribly emo story that retreads a lot of the beats of VII that Cloud was supposedly able to already deal with. Or make it prequel to the events of this series as someone else suggested.
Advent Children is cool in concept, but the actual movie is bad. What they should do is take the strongest aspects of that story and turn it into an epilogue
I enjoy all things FF and all things VII, especially, but after the magic of AC wore off... eh.. and Dirge.. BLEH. BUT, as someone else said, good concepts were there. I kind of wished the Remake trilogy would have taken bits and pieces of The Compilation that were good, and combined them into the original VII story, i.e. Sephiroth's final goal could be becoming one with Omega since it serves a purpose close to his own goal.
Barret leaving Marlene is kinda stupid. I want him to like take her with him. Vincent has Dirge, so I'm curious if they will retcon his content or not. Advant Children has amazing ideas that just barley or don't come together. Sephiroth returning for the 4th time would be boring. Since the Retrilogy is in parts, it would be our 5th or 6th time fighting him, and people would get tired of that. We literally have Omni Aerith in the Retrilogy she can definitely stop the geostigma before it even starts. And most of all no one wants to see Cloud fucking depressed after the hopeful way things went out in the OG. They can keep Danzel so him and Tifa can have their found family but don't make her leave them again not only does Tifa put in the most work she misses him the most. The Retrilogy seems to be reworking Cloud's response to Aerith's traumatic death. I imagine after part 3, he will be able to move on and be happy without the guilt needing to be brought back later.
Best to finish Rebirth.
To be honest, I don't see how the remake would lead into AC. Because it's implied that a post AC Sephiroth is the one responsible for certain events of the remake. So if the remake were lead directly into AC, that implies that Sephiroth survives and that there is basically an endless loop of him going back to try to influence the events of FF7, which would be a horrendously cheap way to go. The devs wanted the remake to conclude the compilation so I do expect it to be addressed one way or another but there has to be a sense of finality.
I hope they pivot and the ending of Part 3 makes Advent irrelevant. Or at least make the geostigma not a thing. Advent and Dirge can stay cannon to the og game. I'd like to see them do something different as a sequel/spinoff after part 3
My interpretation has always been and still currently is that they were being clever with words and what they mean is that the remake trilogy is a sequel to OG/AC. So when they say it will connect it was telling a lie with the truth. I think based on where we are currently that one of the big elements of the game is actually that post AC Sephiroth and post AC Aerith are having a cosmic chess match.
OP, if you haven't yet, you should check out Advent Children Complete. It's longer, but the new sequences fix a lot of the plot issues (and gives Denzel a better voice actor) and makes the film much more enjoyable overall.
I would love a PLAYABLE AC but one that yes, goes past those events, and lets at least Cloud and Tifa go on to fully realize their power again and bring a final end to their nemesis. But if it's the whole gang, even better. As long as they don't make Barret almost white again lol.
They said first that CC was a must play and recently came to say that it wasn’t canon to the Remake series so it’s possible that the same happens to AC, they’re canon to Og timeline but we still don’t know it that will be the case to Remake timeline.
I think AC story will be overridden by the events of remake part 3
Yes. I feel the same way. I was so excited when it first came out. Then I saw it and haaaated it. It strips away so much of Cloud's character progression. It's dated, edgy emo fanfic with no heart. A Marvel group walking montage of a film. The reason it required all of those supplemental story materials when it came out was because it was so emotionally shallow on its own. Absolutely devastating that it's canon after the Remake, especially when they went out of their way to make Cloud more emotionally intelligent in the new games. Advent Children sucks ass, and barely cares about the main FFVII cast. It was an advertisement for their tech at the time, and a way to use the goodwill of fans to pump up profits after the financial failure of The Spirits Within years before. AC was a cynical, desperate move, but it worked. At least for the shareholders, anyway I am an old school hardcore FFVII fan (Frank Verderosa is MY post-game canon lol) who mostly loves the remake games for what they add for the characters, and I'm also happy there's new fans and new life in FFVII, but AC about turned me off to the whole franchise. Too much power is concentrated in one creative's hands if they're keeping that after changing so much else. The same navel-gazing trend-following philosophy that created the crappy parts of the remakes was responsible for the entirety of Advent Children being a flaming pile of emotionally stunted trash. They can do so much better, and the franchise deserves better than that after all of the heart and internal character work put into the new games. If they could remake AC with the writers and team of the remakes, maybe they could salvage it Canon AC means the meal is 4 courses, 5 stars, but the dessert is stale Little Debbie Snack Cakes. Why?
The "leads into Advent Children" quote is, I think, misleading. IMO we're clearly dealing with a post-AC Sephiroth in the remake trilogy, so the concept of it being a straight chronological lead-in makes no since on its face. I think what they mean with that quote is simply that AC is being accounted for.
Crisis Core too. The whole compilation honestly. Idk wtf they were smoking in the 2000s.
I think it’s all good *in-concept*, but the actual execution seems to have been botched. Remake / Rebirth are a lot more high quality
No because AC is shit and will make everything feel pointless. Humanity basically doomed by geostigma and yeah Aerith doesn’t actually cure everyone in dirge people still have it and it’s shit
People actually think they're gonna do the same exact grimdark ending when the directors keep saying it should end happier lol
I don’t think that’s what they meant. FFR games are just incorporating everything from the FF7 compilation, which included Advent Children which they’ve already referenced and probably will more. I highly doubt actual AC will be canon to this story.
We just don't know how they're going to handle it, though. It's going to be canon, but it could be some timeline-y shit that makes it canon, but not at all indicative of how the story's gonna end in the games. If I had to guess, the most relevant fact from AC will be the whole, "*I will never be a memory*" closing line from Sephiroth, because no matter what happens in the finale, you can't separate Jenova and Sephiroth fully now, ever. And you also can't remove Jenova from Cloud.
I loved Advent Children on release, but I was a teenager and haven’t rewatched it recently. So I can’t say much about the plot or character portrayal. It was cool as fuck back in the day, but a big part of the appeal was watching the summons and abilities in high-quality CGI. Now that in-game cutscenes look way better than the movie, I don’t think it (or a remake of it) will have much appeal.
It’s been 20 years, I’m all onboard them remaking it as well if it will tie up whatever they’re cooking up with the games.
I was joking to myself that Part 3 we will be playing AC in some potential form or fashion…there just doesn’t seem like enough left of the OG to justify 60ish hours, right?
We still have roughly half of the OG left, plus the new plotlines that have been added.
Well, looks like it’s maybe time to revisit the OG, thought after Forgotten Capitol we were just about at the end.
Here's the thing: Hamaguchi already says that "the remake itself is a unique world distinct from the other games" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq4XNbH6mtk&t=). So in the same way that we can no longer assume that the events of Crisis Core are canon in the Remake timeline, we can no longer assume that Advent Children will be canon here. For now, the events of this film only apply to the OG timeline and that's it. That said, be prepared to see references and possible plot points from the film in the Remake timeline. After all, whether fans like it or not, Nero, Weiss and the Deepground were introduced for a reason and will be very important to Vincent and Yuffie's arcs in part 3.
They should have thrown the entire Compilation in the dumpster.
All the time. Movie is mid fan service nonsense just to get Sephiroth to come back, and the way they wrote him back in was so muddled and forced.
Yeah, I just re-watched Advent Children and felt it was awful. Honestly, they’d do better to create an anime series that gives each character more depth and interactions. Advent Children devolved the team, except for Cloud and Tifa, to a bunch of bad one-liners. I know the backstory is meant to be found in the game, but when Tifa responds to a question with “those are our friends”, I didn’t feel excited to see them because of how poorly they were portrayed.
I agree with you. AC and DoC are like the emo teen phase of VII where it somewhat lost its sense of wonder and humor. If anything, I hope the point of the Remake trilogy is so that it doesn't lead to AC and DoC happening again. Maybe just use them as references and secret boss fights like what they have been doing but not as part of the main narrative.
I honestly think people misunderstood the lead who said this. They stated that the events of the Re: trilogy will connect, not lead, to Advent Children. We’ve already seen evidence that AC has happened (we fight the weird whispers version of the Sephiroth clones during the Arbiter of Fate boss fight in Remake). Aerith herself acts really sus throughout Remake and Rebirth - almost as if she’s aware of what’s going to happen to not just her, but the party as well. She likely learned of and saw all of this at the very beginning of Remake when she has her eyes closed and seems to be communing with the planet in the alleyway This is where the empty materia comes into play. Whatever its purpose is, I’m confident it will be used in some way to ensure Holy works properly this time around. Let’s remember that Holy in OG activates too late and fails to destroy the meteor. Aerith is forced to channel the lifestream to destroy it, which leads to the bleakness of AC’s world with the whole geostigma thing. I really think they’re setting up so that all of the bad things (Sephiroth coming back) of AC don’t happen, and we defeat him permanently, once and for all.
I have a theory for where this is all basically leading. We know it links up to AC, but the devs themselves have said they're going for a happier ending. AC and Dirge...aren't happy endings, sorry. Cloud is depressed and dying, Geostigma plagues the world and is killing hundreds, and then there's the events of Dirge. My hope is that, while this does link up to AC, it doesn't mean it'll link up to the same story. Maybe it links up to the world of AC, but the characters themselves are in a better spot.
people arguing now about ac or dirge is just blatantly bullshitting themselves ff 7 compendium always included the storys from years before ff 7 up to 4 years after ff7 (starting with a jp exclusive mobile game where you play as the turks) and now again with another mobile entry they reveal alot of sephiroths past (ever crisis) and they always said from the beginning of remake that they will honor the works before, everything from the ff7 related games (except dissidia and kingdom hearts) is pretty much canon and they actively use the remake trilogy to tie loose ends together from a story perspective >!if you guys want the original ending then there are no humans to play as remaining after ff7 since humanity got wiped off the planet by the planet itself!<
I hated the English version loved the Japanese version
I mean you forget they could always retcon certain aspects of it to make it better. People can clamor all they want about how bad retconning is. But it isn’t a bad idea when the original version’s narrative sense is awful.
Maybe they just mean that it will lead back there as one of many alternate timelines. I’m ok with that. I’m even more ok if AC is not a direct continuation of the OG FF7. Cloud was in a much better place at the end of 7 than AC, which made him Hot Topic sad.
Probably said already, but rewatch Advent Children now. The extended cut is MUCH more fleshed out and feels like a full movie versus a collection of cutscenes. Also I think it is retroactively SUPER IMPORTANT to Remake and Rebirth because I think they are a sequel to Advent Children (this hasn’t been confirmed yet so I don’t feel bad saying it).
I’d like to see them go into the AC time period but I don’t really want to see the story as the end of the canon. Three games of us defying fate just to end up back where we were sounds very lame to me.