Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has the opportunity to fix plot threads from the original Final Fantasy 7. Though FF7 is famous for its brilliant twists and fleshed out world, the dense plot left some players confused, and a few storylines lacked the closure they deserved. Fans of the original game have played through the story enough to fully grasp it, but the FF7 Remake trilogy must appeal to new players as well. As such, revising plot points is essential to hook new fans.
The FF7 Remake trilogy has set up these revisions neatly thanks to the ending of the first game. FF7 Remake introduced Whispers: mysterious specters that preserve fate and keep the game’s events on the same path as the original FF7. However, at the end of the game Cloud and his allies defeat the Whispers, loosing themselves from fate and freeing the FF7 Remake’s creators from the confines of their source material. Tetsuya Nomura, the FF7 Remake trilogy's director, clearly hopes to carve out his own story in the universe of FF7 and rectify some of his perceived issues with the original story.
FF7 Rebirth: Zack Survives Crisis Core & Exposes Cloud’s Identity
The emotional core of the original FF7 is Cloud’s burgeoning realization that his identity has been confused with the now-deceased SOLDIER member Zack Fair. These fascinating revelations are revealed through flashbacks that completely shift the player’s understanding of Cloud, yet their sporadic execution left many players confused as to what precisely happened. Zack replaces Cloud in Final Fantasy 7 as his black-haired counterpart, yet he feels more like a plot contrivance than a fleshed-out character. This is remedied by the prequel Crisis Core, but understandably FF7 Rebirth seemingly wants Zack to play a larger role in the story and more clearly establish Cloud’s confused identity.
To that end, FF7 Remake recreates the original moment of Zack’s death, but this time shows him surviving instead as the Whispers are defeated. With Zack now alive in FF7 Rebirth, he will inevitably run into Cloud and expose the schism in his personality. Apart from creating a fantastically tense moment, Zack’s anticipated meeting with Cloud serves another purpose: making the backstory to FF7 clearer than in the original. For the player, actually seeing Zack versus FF7 protagonist Cloud on-screen demonstrates who Cloud believed himself to be, without a jarring expository flashback.
Introducing Zack to FF7 Rebirth triggers numerous other tensions. Though Zack is an honorable soldier, he may commandeer Cloud’s role in the group out of resentment for assuming his identity. Additionally, the two men have another source of friction between them: their competing love for Aerith. Zack was Aerith’s first love, as shown in Crisis Core, and in the original game this sparked Aerith’s love for the similar-looking Cloud. At the end of FF7 INTERmission, Zack is shown visiting the Sector 5 Church in hopes of finding Aerith once more. The love triangle between the three will no doubt impede the group’s quest.
FF7 Rebirth: Aerith’s Death May Be Fated, Even If Not By Sephiroth
This love triangle between Cloud, Zack, and Aerith in FF7 may also impact the most devastating moment from the original game: Aerith’s death beneath the City of the Ancients. In the original FF7, Aerith’s death here leads to her ing the Lifestream and allows her to stop Meteor using Holy at the end of the game. While Aerith’s death is one of the triumphs of the original game, its inclusion in FF7 Rebirth is uncertain at best. The idea of the FF7 Remake trilogy is to deviate from fate, and so it seems unlikely that Nomura would want to replicate Aerith’s death in the exact same manner as the source material.
With fate now malleable and both Cloud and Zack intent on saving her, Aerith may live following FF7 Remake, and it feels as though FF7 Rebirth will see the two fighters giving their all to save her. Cloud and Zack could potentially rescue Aerith at the City of the Ancients, proving they can defy fate. However, Aerith would later realize that she must sacrifice herself to stop Meteor - despite Cloud and Zack’s best efforts, she dies anyway. This would deliver the satisfaction of revisiting the original game’s iconic moment while still shifting the story in a new direction.
FF7 Rebirth: Uncovering Jenova’s True Origins May Lead To Its Ultimate Defeat
FF7 Rebirth may instead offer an alternative to Aerith’s death by plunging deeper into the lore behind the FF7 universe. One loose thread in the original game is the exact identity of Jenova, the so-called mother of FF7's Sephiroth and parasitic extra-terrestrial being. Jenova is known as “the calamity from the skies,” a creature whose sole goal is to take over the planet upon which it lands and then use it as a vessel for attacking the next planet.
The original FF7 makes Jenova’s exact identity and purpose difficult to discern, and not just because of poor translation. Jenova has an odd dual role, acting both as Sephiroth’s originator and a creature that is manipulated by Sephiroth. Much of FF7 has Cloud and his group chasing parts of Jenova that are disguised to look like Sephiroth, and the Sephiroth that kills Aerith is really one of these Jenova parts. FF7 Rebirth should change the story to better explain Jenova’s confusing role while potentially exposing a way to destroy it.
While FF7 posits that Jenova is an alien, its suspiciously human appearance suggests that Jenova may actually be one of the Cetra, an ancient race of people from whom humans diverged long ago. If true, Jenova’s desire to infect the planet may be a long-forgotten grudge against the Cetra for being cast out from Gaia. This truth could empower Cloud’s group to eradicate Jenova entirely instead of killing Sephiroth, who is merely a wielder of Jenova’s power. This plotline would give space to expand and clarify Jenova’s origins, while also shifting FF7 Rebirth’s story towards a changed end that feels less like the pyrrhic victory of the original game.
These major plot threads will all inevitably need to be addressed in FF7 Rebirth and its sequel. However, a lot of ground is still left to cover given that there are only three Remake games. Additionally, the game’s creators claim that the FF7 Remake trilogy will be an enjoyable experience even for new players to the series. Given this, Nomura and his team may not attempt to fix FF7’s plot threads, instead opting to skip them entirely while borrowing the lore and aesthetic of the FF7 world. With fate now in Cloud’s hands, everything could change in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
Source: Final Fantasy/YouTube
