Final Fantasy VII Remake - Spoiler Mode with Maximilian Dood

I'm Michael Damiani and I have finished Final Fantasy 7 remake I'm Kyle Bosch Minh and I finished Final Fantasy 7 remake I'm Brad Ellis and I finished Final Fantasy 7 remake hey I'm Ben Mar and I finished final that season remake what's up this is Maximilian dude and I finished Final Fantasy 7 remake [Music] welcome to a new installment of spoiler mode this is a special spoiler mode for multiple reasons first off we have a very special guest joining us this time Maximilian dude how's it goin hi guys it's good to see you again to be here so this voice sounds like and for everyone watching this this is a treat because this is the first spoiler mode since what that we better know these publicly to everybody whether or not you're a patron or not this was just too big to be contained two patreon so we had to let this loose on the internet but Final Fantasy 7 remake I don't even know where to begin here Kyle was asking me about like a rundown before all this and now I'm just like the gravity of actually playing this game it still hasn't even sunk in with me that this is real and I've been playing this each time I go back to playing it I feel like I'm still playing it for the first time despite knowing it I just cannot believe how impressive this game is I it was really telling to me Damiani when i finished it and sat through that ending and was chewing on that ending for a long time and then I was like well start you know cleaning up optional stuff and was having just as much fun as I was going through the story for the first time like it really spoke to the quality of the combat and really kind of the quality of the things that you can chase after that I wasn't because sometimes when you like are doing optional stuff in the game it kind of feels like you're forcing it where it's like this is not as good but I need to keep playing I wasn't feeling that with 7 remake like I was having just as much fun which is awesome I mean I definitely agree with that I just started it's not of like a thing that we should probably like say I think this is obvious but all of us here played the original Final Fantasy 7 first correct yes okay miss I don't believe you max but though you think that's the one thing is that this is something to set this up I think properly is that this is the games I think a lot of like people everyone in this spoiler what I think has been waiting for this for almost what 15 years yes 300 so it's ps3 like the ps3 for me so here's this real quick for max for me it was that EGM report back in like the mid 2000s before ps3 came out came out that said yeah the room was a square-enix the newly merged codex was going to put the ps1 games on ps2 and they yeah they explained it as like HD remasters or something else like yes this is gonna be so great like seven eight nine starting with those out it was right after what Capcom did with Resident Evil right and then I got generally well it was it was well reviewed but didn't sell great which was like I think one of the reasons they didn't end up like actually doing it because it was limited to GameCube at the time like it's funny is that re re remake which is largely considered to be like one of the greatest remakes greatest games ever kind of didn't perform super well on GameCube even though reviewed incredibly so I think like things like that because the landscape was so much different remakes didn't really exist for the most part had an impact on their choice to eventually scrapped it like back in the mid 2000s yeah I wonder if that had any impact or anything like that but the thing is I think the important thing to take away though is that this has been one of the most anticipated things in video games period IX a half three coming out would be like the only thing left I think at this point now we've had all these dreams come true this is like one of the biggest at the top of the checklist to check off and something pretty close to a half-life 3 like sort of just now exists right around the same timeframe it's all very weird Damiani you you bringing up egm really takes me back because egm had some like amazing final fantasy focused issues and you talking about the following 7 remake demo it really speaks to how much times have changed because like that tech demo sort of sustained the fanbase for years this kind of subsisted of that hope whereas now I just feel like things happen at a much greater speed even even I think by and large the speed at which people are processing the first part of this remake is surprising like it's a long game and it felt like people were done like a day after came yeah very quickly so one thing I do want to talk about if we're talking about you know anticipation and but you know obviously it's kind of like the only game I was looking forward to this entire year right and it may be still is that I think that the game is great despite our expectations you know what I mean I think we had expectations that were impossible to meet and for myself at least like it exceeded them that's that's insane that's really really crazy that this was a game that I've been looking forward to for five years and that it paid off on that it came out as did yeah what I think he I think it exceeded expectations because it didn't only play into expectations right it wasn't just content with with doing what the fanbase wanted very much decided to do that a little bit for sure not without a little bit a lot but it also went and did its own thing which is why I think it it's more enjoyable than it would have been and I don't think the level of conversation is happening that's happening now would have happened if it had just played it completely straight well and I think yeah they really quick the like the level of that anticipation and considering what happened with this game during its development like Square moving into an entire new engine that they've now made like this is their third game that so they're figuring that out it's switching developers halfway through completely the game being announced with the director not even knowing he's directing it like it was it seemed like it was going to be and I like remember the excitement I had for it leading into 2016 and then you find out oh they've only finished the scenario oh my god I'm like this is not gonna be good is it this is gonna be like the characters that are gonna be talking to each other are gonna be like dirge of cerberus style like oh no and then I forgot about it and luckily like Oh those expectations from the final game absolutely mind-blowing what what the final product actually is considering all of that mm-hmm I completely forgot that monolith soft worked under servers did they really yeah at least that's what the Wikipedia page says everybody starts somewhere yeah I mean yeah it did I think this was a game that was probably pegged by people that it would never be able to live it could be great but it would not live like a lair ectasias just because people would is below the expectations like at a proportion for this and I think also part of that was fueled by for so long we got everything but a remaster to this game an HD remake of this game with the compilation of Final Fantasy 7 stuff they would give us everything sequels prequels but they just would not touch the original game like that was like sacred to them we can go every other direction but retouch the original time they look even at that time though they're kind of like hinting that they might that it was all leading up it was a good thanks he's yeah they like never pulled the trigger until like they showed the tech demo and then they kept talking about it and it just never materialized I think what was Mack saying kind of X was same as that you kind of forgot about it for a while and like this is never gonna happen like it was you wanted more stuff but there was like a solid three years worth it's just absolutely nothing and the funny thing is that like the only reason that it sort of came into existence and gita' say and Nomura sort of spoke about this in interviews was literally their mortality like they're like if we start this project now we're gonna be how old by the time it's done like we have to do it we if we're gonna do this we have to do this now I get this like Morello Marez in his mid-40s and he said no GMOs way older than me so and he's the original scenario and current scenario what writer so I I think that was a big part of it because they all there's a big thing early on that ff7 is to I nobody wants to touch it right nobody these people that were initially involved in part of the key decisions of development actually didn't want to get close to it until like that realization they had in an interview that okay if we're gonna do this realistically we have to do it now like actually now because how old are you who could it be by the time this is over I think what's most surprising to me like if I could sum up all my feelings in 597 remake in in like one quick explanation I feel like Final Fantasy and really Square and accept large is that its worst when it feels like plot overtakes character completely like where you don't you don't feel invested and you just feel like the game is like constantly explaining [ __ ] to you and that well you can maybe make arguments that parts of fun was e17 they do do that how grounded in real all these characters felt that I've seen not just in Final Fantasy 7 right but in the compilation of Final 9 7 and you know cameos in other games as well how it kind of felt like I was getting to know them the first for the first time and and how vulnerable they felt and how much I cared about them that that really blew me away completely I agree with you I agree with you wholeheartedly and it's the thing I was worried the most yeah right these characters have never been represented this well in Advent Children in crisis core out cited Zack who's actually a genuinely good character but Zack and crisis core is a human character in like this weird robot anime world yeah like he and he knows it like it's when I played the game recently he's like what are you talking about everybody's crazy like actually has moments like that in the game I'm like oh my god he's the audience holy hell yeah and where does Cerberus which has such a disconnect of just what even Final Fantasy 7 is like that's that's the stuff that's been leading you up to this and now you have a honestly I feel a square game much less a game that brings back the memories of character attachment like the original Final Fantasy 7 like Metal Gear Solid in many ways like these characters feel so grounded and real and human it's easily than one of the easiest things they could have screwed up and it's probably my favorite of like any video game because I'm an ff7 it's what I wanted yeah they're tracked like I would say their character portrayals in this game has been some of the best square in a long time like a long time all the tests I'll be like I love Kingdom Hearts women man those characters are like totally unreal listed yeah goofy robots but like this yes they actually give you the time to get to know these characters and I was like you guys saying just so happy how like human they felt cuz it could have been a disaster for sure it was one of the biggest accessory as well and I think it was was pretty clear from the beginning that they were doing a good job of it but I think the moment that hit me the hardest where was when Barret exhibit on leap like just displaying his grief like like hint way after the play he comes down and he's banging on the rock so that's seen the original one kind of like fizzle supposed to be at this like big important moment it's a little goofy with like like those character models but like the voice work accompanying is well like the writing like in the direction delivery of it it was like I was like it would hurt to watch him like zoo like suffering and like him in denial that this was going on anytime Barrett and Marlene talked to each other as god yes this is crazy it's so good yeah so Damiani I actually think a criticism that you can level at the original Final Fantasy and a lot of other games in general is they don't really do too much character development outside of like the segments where it's like okay now we're going to explain the back back story of this character it's like this is the Barrett part or this is you know the era's part or that it's very segmented and I think final is a 7 remake takes this opportunity to represent the story and gives you so many incredible and authentic small moments where they're you know just through the animation and the little banter that is going on you get a much stronger sense of these characters they don't have to wait for the big flashback scene at the behind the door thing at e3 I think max you saw that too is like when we saw it like when they are just in the elevator and like how like flesh out the characters were I was like kind of shocked and blown about it it was the thing that I wanted to talk to somebody about like okay I need someone that has perspective that saw it the same thing I did because I can't convey how the characters were acting without sounding like a crazy person yes the opposite of what's where does yeah it's just hard to like to explain that feeling to like how good the dialogue felt between them it's something you have to show not necessarily tell so well I guess yeah the localization team clearly worked their butts off yeah what's weird to me about localization is you also have to be a normal person you have to talk like a unit yeah exactly and so like you you have to be you have to first of all know two languages at least and understand them well but also just yeah have character speak later talk yeah have someone would actually talk and they use swear words really well you know I'm shocked by that this game probably has the most effective cursing I think and this is it this is an assumption on my part but I think what is amazing about this localization is it feels like they are just gigantic Final Fantasy 7 fans right like they like they know I feel that in and out like they have a huge respect for the source material but they don't it doesn't become this prison like they understand it well enough to manipulate it and make it better but they don't they don't treat it like oh I can't I can't change anything they're not too literal about it which I really like the best the best example of that is the depiction of Erath oh and yeah how some people are reacting to like Aerith cursing in some situations like the way that she acts and they don't like that because she has been sort of depicted as this holier-than-thou kind of character in final fantasy post ff7 but when you go back and you listen to her talk she is the snarky assist weird kooky girl mm-hmm they like they get it because she is that this entire game like the whole game she has this character and personality and then obviously has like a deeper meaning behind her maybe behind what she's saying and that's it's handled with genuine care and that's the part where you realize that either it's the localization team but also I think the way no jima described it how they used to write cloud in these characters of what fans expect them to be and instead of the way they originally were they said they went back on remake they went back to we're gonna write the characters like we wrote them back in the 90s cool and that shows in spades okay so squared can you just do that with your other properties like even with cloud cuz I saw people come me the disappointed rather than saying they complain they were a little disappointed he showed so much emotion in this game compared to the original one because well I was like what like this is like the spoiler territory like his backstory and stuff which we haven't really gotten into yet so I can't say it here yet because it's beyond the scope of this game it's even original spoilers but yeah it's like an original game spoilers is up but people who played the original we're like he should be acting like this I'm like like I don't like for me I think here I like this I was like I like cloud getting excited caring like you know not being this like cold like I mean there's parts like that for sure where he does that I mean not every parts perfect like I want to criticize something the best part is because I literally just replayed it last night is helping the old man who can't visit the grave anymore in sector five where you go there and kill the monsters and it has an interesting effects because when you go back to him you basically are using reverse psychology on him but he gets like angry on you at you because you just don't want him to get killed or hurt himself trying to visit there so he's like fine I won't do it anymore and stuff so he's like angry at you and like hates you goes you just a merkin wants money and stuff and the next second you turn to air it's like doesn't it feel good to help people and stuff and like it's all happy and jolly and stuff I was like there's still moments like that or get like massaged a little bit like that's the game showing it's you know cracks but the same time yeah everything you said was like all of you said about like this characters like the way they were written but the best part for me is that they took this opportunity to expand like instead of making filler stuff to pad this game out for the most part they took these moments and like they took these areas flush them out but the the like byproduct of that is you spend more time with these characters and as you're just walking along like the the banter between them is adding so much development like I love that like you've got to see I cared more about characters now than I did before like I knew it's like seeing Jessie wedge and bigs how much screen time they're getting how much like dial you're getting I was like I'm gonna really care about these characters when [ __ ] goes down with them and how many of those guys how many of you guys when you got to sector seven for the first time underground like you know they the lower Plato sector seven just walked around the town and heard people talk about like Shinra and stuff yeah yeah it's a it's great I got choked up at that point when I was playing through it I just like looked up and just saw the plate and everyone talked around me I was like the only [ __ ] I'm into I'm in this world right now yeah just like the fact that people are talking about like coming back from work and what happened at the bombing either husband's gonna make it I was like I realize like dude this place is real I can't believe this like it that's that's honestly the same spot where I was like there was just too much joy like I have to go take a break and kiss my wife or something get this away from me I actually really like how they handled avalanche in this game not only with obviously the the Avalanche crew that we're familiar with but the expansion of it it really just kind of like how they didn't portray Evelyn and this is in the front original photo - Evan as well but I think they do a better job here of like the way people talk about Avalanche and the pain that you're causing and then like how Jesse is kind of internalizing that pain and how T for questions it and how like maybe the organization that you're going with doesn't have the same values as you like they they added good nuance to these groups alright I think that a lot of that can be applied to Shinra as well and kind of the different sides of Shinra that you see the way the Turks act yeah the Turks they know they're doing bad things they're like well it can't go crunch can't grow a conscience now like my stuff sooner HQ is actually when I listen to the most NPCs I thought those people were just kind of interesting I was waiting so yeah I just working in there doing what these people are talking about yeah and they feel bad too and like yeah it's just like I can't believe how that happens yeah it's pretty cool it's just a Presta don't matter like dollar they had father and the fact that like they would all almost all update when you did something significant like for big things yeah everybody says yeah and it I was just so great at immersing me making me feel this is a living world I could not appreciate that enough I know other games do similar things but it just was never a detractor for me in it never graded and it was something I didn't wanna like I wish I could turn this off I just loved it and I did we yeah like you max like every news area I went to was just like mandatory walking around hearing everyone what they're saying and stuff like let's think a big part of it is that the localization that lends itself so well to the main cast also they do their best with all these side characters like they try to get like all these like little characters you talk to moments and things like the teacher who you meet at another area at the end who comes back to being a teacher and like all these all these tiny things that are sprinkled throughout each of the big towns of the game and that just is just complimented with the fact that they they get it like we need we need a way to open up the world of Final Fantasy 7 without giant exposition dumps and I kinda love that there's no written text dialogue in the game like at all there's subtitles but what you hear about everything is coming from the words of the people in each sector or you know the upper plate or whatnot so you're like like like a normal person you're just walking by and you just hear people talking about how Avalanche blew something up and some person heard like well I heard they're actually hurting the planet like nah that's [ __ ] there there's some crazy terrorists and you hear all these different perspectives throughout the whole game I max on that very specific point I was remarking to my wife I was like this is this is amazing that that everything is spoken and there's so much dialogue and I just I looked over and I said like other games just can't do this like they just don't have the budget yeah a lot of games wish they could that's where they felt like they were throwing money at the screen right right totally um a slight criticism that I have I agree with everything you guys are saying about the conversations I feel like in sector 5 specifically there were moments where like I would walk forward and it would just be like yes three different conversations oh yeah it was it would be like a wall of sound even during like like mid cutscene know what happened - yeah like ah this could be like spread out a little better maybe doesn't have to be quite as much do you remember the audio balancing like the dialogue balancing and final fantasy 15 how that was super weird I'll characters were sort of cutting each other off and no one whatever you people were like trying to get their words in while you were continuing as a character and then they were cutting each other off again he could it's like there's there's definitely a much better balance of that in this game but it's not perfect and I do like this whole proximity audio thing relative to your character but when you start running it falls apart like when you when you just cook it through town it's like whoa whoa holy Sh what was that but if you walk through it it's like kind of okay I have a very particular question max that you made me think of but it's not relevant to this conversation at all but I would it's something I haven't been able to ask anybody so there's that one teacher who becomes a dancer she's like a bee right hmm yeah and then you see her later and she's a teacher and you never talk about it again is there any more of that I don't think so I think I spoke to her again so I was like so how about last night at the funny begin and she doesn't the character doesn't acknowledge it because she's like please don't tell them yeah she's trying doesn't give you the option like no you're just not gonna tell I'm cool right she kind of like hints that she's got some plans tonight and then you just see her in an alleyway you gotta like tuck in behind but that added so much to that character and you can just completely miss it oh I love that and it also is like not like everybody just stays in there one little NPC City - I like that I like Johnny and stuff like that my god dude and stuff they do with Johnny is just so much fun like the thing that when Johnny showed up and he started being a character he has like one of my favorite moments at the very beginning of the game that is like crucial for the character development and it's the part where Tifa tells cloud you're scaring me and I'm like this scene is fantastic I hope I hope this isn't the end of Johnny because this character is very sporadic in the original Final Fantasy 7 and he barely has much he does he just sort of shows up at some random places and he sort of like follows you from sector 7 but the way they sprinkled them in when you eventually get to wall market not really a spoiler but when you eventually gets a wall market he's there a lot and I just it made me realize this is your kazoo playing Yahoo so at this point it's ff7 your kazoo yeah yeah pretty much for sure whoo quickly for clarification for you max you say spoilers for anything you want for the green man and stuff yeah I was I just was not spoil anything that happens beyond what we saw in this in the remake in the original game it's on the table yeah so og I guess OD pulposus seven spoilers are open as well yes don't feel don't feel restricted by that yeah remake Oh God necessitates talking about the original fun of it yeah like they show flashes yeah I know how you do your stuff max you say on camera like okay now we're gonna talk about spoilers like you are free to say whatever you want like splendid because they loud that that's that's very good because there's a there's a moment where I have to like get a barometer from all of you guys on what level you are on this game's story because there's a surface level understanding of like the events that transpire and the things that happen and then there's like level two and then there's level three and then there's like huge giant Omega brain level four so I and then everyone's on level one when you start you don't really see these things but this this game does something that I adore when it comes to storytelling and it's that it's subsequent playthroughs are dramatically affected with perspective matically and Final Fantasy 7 remake if you go back and you start listening to what characters say and how trans events transpire and who's talking to what and how they're talking to who things are put in a completely different light then oh this is just the original Final Fantasy 7 as a remake and it gets much deeper than that with with a lot of subtext and a whole bunch of proof like there are so many things that people are finding throughout the story that are just what the hell is going on this is stuff I want to get into I want to get into this jeez max you're talking with the levels of where we're at max I'm a I'm a Kingdom Hearts fan dude like alone I know I'm level five on this thing I appreciate that because like everyone's like oh you're getting no murad you're getting over it everyone's saying that I'm like so there's a big I feel like there's a big difference in ff7 remake what's getting nomer it's we know the scale we know the perspective we know where the story is like going like we haven't we have an idea already that there is going to be a conclusion that makes a tolerable amount of sense and also the other big one is that we're invested as [ __ ] it is why we're talking about this it's why I've watched about seven or eight different podcasts if people in the exact same position we are just like losing their minds like upset distracted emotionally compromised like people love it they tell you they don't love it like the amount of conversations that are happening at the end of this game is like different than any game I've ever played and that's because people are on all these different levels and I hear these conversations of people that oh they didn't figure out that yet oh god they don't know about this oh they didn't catch that like once they figure that out it's like I wonder what they think or what if they're ever gonna find that out if they just are gonna leave the game and then not pay attention to any of it so I'm so glad that like I couldn't do Kingdom Hearts because oh it's crazy it's not for everybody that's for sure yeah like the characters and I see why people like all of like Kingdom Hearts weird stilted dialogue and all that stuff like it's practically its identity now and it feels like they just went exemplary with it in Kingdom Hearts 3 so my issue is that there's no characters for me to like wander well there is a lot of conversation where people are like oh man they just went batshit crazy in the last 10% and it seemed that way right well because III had this feeling when I was first playing through it where something would happen I'd be like oh that's weird and then I would immediately go into like oh man they're recreating this scene that I know super well like he would just kind of put it in the back of your mind first time I saw whispers I was like is that yeah what's that part of it okay yeah yeah exactly that kind of reaction yes but then once you have the knowledge of the ending it's like no they were really like even maybe heavy handily setting this up throughout the entire game like they are leaning into this it's not like it did kill me completely I don't know where they were doing the flashes like forward of the visions like clouds seeing the stuff and like even the average children shots I was just like holy [ __ ] take a second so this is the that's the kind of perspective I've been trying to like tell people because people like jump in they're like that's so weird and dumb and it doesn't make any sense and I'm like okay so here's the thing the eye qalam the plot ghosts and that's just what they are right the plot goes so the most obvious and aggressive thing in the game that is that is essentially trying to intervene and manipulate the story and that's the one that you noticed you're like I hate this even me understanding what the plot ghosts are and what they what they do and why they're doing it I still am like I don't like the way they are implemented it like they're they're implemented it's kind of like a weird wall that just kind of comes up like blocking Metiria and you're like wait were there a literal yeah they're literal like like like in moments they literally get in the way of you getting material where's my game like get out of the way so I I felt that during the playthrough but I've come to like realize that they're not is like there's like the level one like I said there's multiple levels to this so so Kyle I'll give you some perspective on like where me and Brad are kind of at right here sure what goes when you beat the game are obviously like meta right they have this perspective yeah it's like oh they're they're representing of like the fans and it's the developers need to like create something new because even if you're remaking something you have to put a spin on it that feels fresh or else you just get bored because you just feel like you're repeating the past and the plot ghosts represent fans and they they are there to preserve what their legacy is and all this stuff and it really feels that way and I'm sure you probably felt that way upon like beating the game to write it was actually what I was hoping they were it was I feel like when you get to Shinra HQ there's you start to get it you start to get their intent yeah and I was like man what if these things are trying to make sure the first game happens and I thought they were like maybe good guys and that is very clear that's like hey maybe it's not a good thing if the original events happen yeah I think you can even see that in the way in which they prevent they present Shinra itself and like very make slowly make you go through and look at everything I also think and be a metaphor in that way like people are interpreting the NGO swear it's like commenting on how preciously you view things I guess yeah and like that's and that's the exact perspective that you should have upon first beating the game and it and it and to me it felt the same way where it's like man I really didn't like the plot ghosts and then somebody tells you suffer off this from the future you're like what excuse me like Sephiroth is Advent Children Sephiroth he's going back to Final Fantasy seven Thanos style to stay alive because he knows he's going to die and you're like you've now reached level two what excuse me like and then you start thinking about the the plot ghosts and the the big realization I had is when somebody said they were holding Aerith in place at the beginning so cloud could meet her and I'm like huh you're and I'm like yeah I was kind of perturbed by the opening scene of cloud meeting Aerith you don't get like the kind of sweet you know solemn scene that they sort of exchange a flower and move their separate ways and then bump into each other just because it's their right it's their eventual fate but now she's like freaking out and things are all different and clouds essentially like forced to meet her because of how like disturbed she is right but what happened right before that do you remember like the big event that happened right as right before cloud saw Aerith is that walking through the fire sequence with suffering it is cool it is yeah absolutely so much different than the original Final Fantasy 7 you have to start thinking about things in perspective now that we know suffer us from the future anything different from the original game is Sephiroth screwing with the past so he delayed cloud basically he just wasted sort of his time he literally led him into a corner spewed some lies about him saving the planet now we have to save it together just so he would never meet eros yeah and if you go back and you start paying attention to the plot ghosts and we're suffereth is and what the things he are doing throughout the entire game it actually lines up like the reason one of the most confusing ones to me is like why are all the plot ghosts around when the plates about to fall and then you have the fight plot ghosts before you get to the tower and then you have to like fight these things like you like all the characters like get the hell out of the way it's because right when you get to the tower after the plot ghosts Biggs falls down and that's the exact moment when the characters get there in the original game so they were getting the characters to the tower when they needed to be so they don't run up it too soon it's like every single time the plot ghosts actually come into effect it's because Sephiroth butterfly affected the [ __ ] out of the original timeline of Final Fantasy 7 he messed stuff up that starts screwing other things up that starts screwing other things up that affects all the stuff that sort of starts going throughout the original game and they're like a defense of the planet to get everything back in order because some things aren't natural anymore as Sephiroth is a virus and we have to like fix all of his problems I got it I had a question then because I swear at one point there was one that was like hovering over clouds face and like sucking on it and it was like dream for me or something I can't remember it says it says a dream the sweetest of dreams what happens what is right after right after that it's the only time one of them talked and people are already I watched an interpretation of this scene and people are saying it sounds like sefirot this talking to him but I don't know exactly I don't like watch it a few more times yeah but that's that's happening because right after that the entire group of Avalanche is getting attacked by the ghosts and they have that big fight out scene in the middle of you know seventh heaven what happens to Jessie during all that she gets injured and she's unable to go on the mission it was revealed before that cloud is not going on this mission anymore that sepharose butterfly effect of stuff has affected that in some way so now the ghosts have to find a way to get cloud to go on this mission because it's critical because he's got to fall down and meet Aerith right he has to go to there and fight air Buster and do all that stuff so what do they do they literally make him sleep in literally that he doesn't immediately go out and start fighting all the ghosts and stuff like that and that makes so much sense it's just wanted him to sleep yep they just want him to sleep it's not even it's not even like a crazy thing dude once I realize this like holy [ __ ] I don't hate the ghosts anymore they're still like I don't like the way they're implemented but when you start looking at everything they do and then later on like when we start talking about the things they they really start doing which is which actually even more reveals what what this the how this actually does make sense I didn't hate them as much I still don't like their implementation I think the game would have been completely fine without them because and I know I'm going on for a long time I want to let you guys talk because the the things in the game that are already telling the player what's going on like with the story that this is that things are different you accepted because they were cool plot ghosts aren't cool they're like aggressive and they're in your face and they're blocking you and they're not a sight they're not fun like they're like the antithesis of fun it's the planet like trying to stop things from from happening or make things happen but you didn't notice that Sephiroth showing up early is a completely different thing the original him meddling with stuff and showing up in envisions different than the original Final Fantasy 7 you were okay with because it was cool and cloud also can see the future somehow and you're like why can cloud see the future oh it's just a storytelling thing that's neat that's really crazy that cloud has visions of stuff that's gonna happen to him those are really emotionally resonant scenes but then you realize that stuff for us from the future as well and it's like the planet talking to him this [ __ ] is bad like warning like things are warning the player but you accepted it as the player because it's cool it's like nice storytelling stuff only after you beat the game you realize like wait a minute oh my god there are so many things trying to warn us of what's going on here but you didn't realize because plot ghosts are big and aggressive you know so I think no matter how much you try to contextualize all that stuff and you know ascending through the levels as you characterized it I'm not actually sure that that makes it a better game and what I mean by that is like sometimes it feels like the ways you can appreciate 7 remake are fighting each other a little bit because you can almost appreciate it as a die-hard fan who is looking for an expansion you can almost appreciate it as a brand new player with no knowledge and you can almost appreciate it as a metaphor for the fans but it doesn't feel like it's completely any one of those things yes because if Eclair the plot ghosts right right yes I agree so I I think there is a little bit of frustration and a lack of satisfaction when it comes to it not it does in a way feel like it's trying to walk down all of these different paths simultaneously and I get why they're trying to do that and I think that comes back into expectation but there are definitely times I think especially at the ending where I I want a clearer idea of exactly what their intent is I think that will come to light in the sequels and that's why I'm like oh this game whatever whether I ultimately like or dislike this will come down to the sequels but I do think there is like from an audience perspective I do think there are some themes that are fighting with each other a little bit this is definitely like hey when you beat it you're not gonna know everything and I like I'm okay with that a lot of games but I could definitely see where people people want like definitive answers for a lot of things like we're not gonna know like everything we talkin at where time right now could be completely wrong for all we know things could completely change or it could be exactly what we're talking about but I think people are definitely feeling the frustration that has been like a clear vision of what's happening and like some people just don't like the don't like stories that are essentially left open-ended right actually stories where you know like what happens there's like a comfort in knowing what happens and just watching it recreated and then suddenly when you realize that things are happening differently and aggressively like like the plot ghosts like I said I don't I would have been so much happier probably with the plot elements of this story if it was just Sephiroth sort of being shown up early and meddling with cloud just to a deeper extent that he does in the original and cloud having visions of the future you know and that because they essentially thing it's like it's like giving you hints that the characters are somewhat aware of what's going on but that's like like I said that's all like level 2 kind of stuff and I but I completely agree with you been on that that I just I just think the thematic handling of it is not and what it builds up to its like a dumptruck in the end like it's like you're playing ff7 and this remake is great and that dump truck license it just dumps everything on you you're like alright yeah I don't know to me it's like part of the video game medium you know what I mean it's like give me something to fight give me a big crazy thing to fight I think it's you know I think that's kind of like what they all accumulated to I don't know if you guys agree with this but just trying to put it in the perspective because I was actually playing this with somebody who had no experience with one Fantasy 7 and the point that kept coming up with her was why is so far off doing any of this and like with what you're saying max and and obviously there are things that they're going to make more specific but I think what's kind of frustrating about sephiroth's portrayal in part one like I said we get very clear motivations for each character and knowing the original Final Fantasy 7 Sephiroth has very very good reasons for doing what he's doing in relation to his character but you just have no idea like if you've never played this game before you have no idea yeah why stuff Roth is doing anything that he's doing so I completely agree with you like I had to put myself in the perspective and especially in the end it hits you really hard where it's like this will make zero sense to anyone that has any idea who the hell is this dude that [ __ ] net since we're in spoilers who the hell is this dude that shows up that looks like cloud right what the hell is going on what wait he's holding cloud like who what the hell is going on and I had like an epiphany about it last night I thought back to my original Final Fantasy 7 playthrough like when I was super young mmm I remember feeling this before who the hell is this guy that looks like cloud yeah and it's the same reaction I had when you see the picture and ff7 and you realize that wait a minute who the hell is that that's what so it's it's like I almost feel like maybe they're trying to emulate that feeling in the end and then amplify it when you realize eventually that holy [ __ ] like they switch spots like like type or like it'll actually make that moment even heavier when you actually understand when when you really don't realize what cloud is so and I I do agree with you on set for us like origins stuff like not giving any motivation to the character and then I'm also like I'm just trying to like I really have done a lot of thinking in terms of how new players would see this and I feel like Sephiroth is the Darth Vader of this game right yeah this evil guy in the first episode and he does all this evil [ __ ] and are bound good guys obviously hate him and he's definitely like everything wrong with the world and Aerith is there to literally tell you everything about this guy is wrong so that the part two can show up where you find out a lot about where he comes from a lot about what he does and eventually what he's going to do for quote-unquote be the Empire Strikes Back of final fantasy sevens potential trilogy max you make such a good point because I think about the one of my favorite scenes in the original Final Fantasy 7 where you're just traveling along the world map and there's that giant [ __ ] snake and this thing is a pain in the ass and then Sephiroth kills it right like a very Darth Vader moment as you're ascribing sets of the Menace sets up the mystery you don't really have a great understanding of set for us at that point I totally think that that is what they're doing I agree with you but I also just realized I think me criticizing some of these things and an apprehension about how they're paying it off is not really with Final Fantasy 7 remake itself it's a lack of confidence with Square Enix is company yeah like like playing Kingdom Hearts 2 in 2005 and then playing Kingdom Hearts 3 and 2019 like I I think it just comes from like feeling burned or just like feeling a lot of really long waits and others there's that apprehension and I've had like a lot of conversations with my chat over the past few days about this where people have no faith right they don't they're like this I have no faith that this is gonna come out any good and I'm like right and I tell them what was 95% of this game amazing storytelling incredible combat fantastic music like environments that look great obviously aren't the deepest most complex environments ever and that's something we could definitely talk about too but the majority of this game hit the notes that were impossible to hit like things that were expectations that were so high so why would suddenly in the next game all that stuff go away it's not even that it'll go away it's just when are we gonna get it yeah I think it'll be probably three parts honestly I mean I think three makes sense they're already working on it which is nice to know and like they've made some of the groundwork I just have faith much more faith in and out based off what this actually became yeah when I look back at what remake was in like 2016 like you were saying like well they just fish right in the scenario and no more do you mean no he's directing it's just like what the [ __ ] is happening yeah I'm like this way what we got came after that really in the grand scheme of things I think this game like hard development wise like creating of like art assets and and technical combat mechanics and like the the meat and bones was about like two and a half years because right around 2016 they had that that mock-up from cyberconnect2 that was at PlayStation experience yeah yeah and that that trailer was like way more than we thought we were gonna get because cyberconnect2 works fast right those guys are gods at pumping stuff out but then later in development up like the end of 2016 and early we found that oh the scenario hasn't even done oh god like oh god development has now completely shifted we're now taking things entirely in-house and that was like almost two years after the announcement so it was like what the hell is going on so theoretically in internally they had like two and a half to three years actual development time to make this and just like you know actual workflow hitting milestones and all that stuff and if you start thinking about it with like that perspective like they did a pretty good job like all things considered if that was the time frame they had to work with I'm kind of shocked that they got so much done so fast and at least makes you for the sequel because I think the sequels gonna be I mean we can have a separate conversation about this I think the sequel is going to be open-world ala ff15 I think that's the way you surprise people and I think they're already like ready to do Damiani is like oh alright ai-ai-ai-aight fail say it's possible max they absolutely is within the realm of possibility mmm I think I think the more the more reasonable approach is that they will probably have we saw the environments he traveled in between like the main sectors here like you'd have one of these paths I'm not gonna send me to be like straight linear corridors but like they'll be environments they might be a little bit more open but I don't think it's be seamless I don't think it would be like mm Oh size or anything like that there will probably be like environments that lead you on the path towards your next destination and it's something you backtrack through but I don't think they're gonna go for the concept of like a coherent overworld like that I mean like I think that is something I have an idea for something later on but we had an airship cuz people asked about that for later but like I just don't see them going 15 direction for the overworld you may see my hand 10/12 ish right like 12 more towards a medium sized we need 10 and 12 like somewhere show the difference between those two like not as like straightforward as 10 but not as like open as 12 I think it's like I think they'll give you a chances to branch though max because yeah to clarify all the stuff you just talking about with the ending what ifs and stuff I think they just needed to dangle a care in front of like better and saying you need to like expect the unexpected like we can't have you thinking everything's gonna literally happen exactly the same way yes 85% this game we're now in the game was the same with fleshed out stuff that was a you were believable that's what like what we were you believe we were just gonna do this anyway but we still need to have some kind of shock value here and I think that will materialize in parts of part 2 and part 3 I think for the most part they're gonna still hit the major story beats and locations as is but like I took it as like some of that messaging was like hey we need some freedom because a we're not making a giant open overworld because do you think not she's gonna live no I don't you die I think that at all yeah definitely the different boats now like the day there's the she's gonna let real quick I think the whole thing like I think the whole thing is gonna be you will have a decision if you do not let her die you will ultimately come out to a bad outcome what in part three whatever or that'll lead to something bad but it's in order to maintain like what needs to happen for like for the planet to be saved unless you come out to never idea whatever I think they might make because you know this moment's supposed to happen it's not like you'll be but do you now still think it's gonna happen at the same point I think the mystique the the mystique about this needs to be it happens differently might have a different point and like how it goes down might be different yeah I was gonna say like because you cloud now knows the future maybe he's like Sephiroth does want to do it you have to do it or something like surprise [ __ ] like that he's the twisty would that be yes I penned iam who thinks that much who thinks that she has to live Kyle I do I think they want to hurt us by killing someone else okay I think they want to that's I think yeah so Brad how do you feel Max is so you talking about this one point I'm pretty much with you on this point I think the game is gonna build up this in this mindset and you going throughout the story that there might be a way to save her to change that's it Oh Brad Pitt said then her death is so important for the story for the rest of the characters it's she okay big bright she knows she has to die she will eventually know she has to die in a gravity level three but even more at rats on level three okay so there's Sephiroth from the post Abbott choice never off there I was thinking maybe there's even current Sephiroth still in the crater going on right now have stirred oh absolutely so there could be in the past Sephiroth in their future server off the past set both can intervene and kill air is still somehow so here's here's the thing that I think is like sort of confusing about all that Sephiroth still shows up regardless of him being Advent Children Sephiroth like a Sephiroth from the future he still shows up in the same exact in Final Fantasy 7 remake as he does in the classic yeah he's a vision he's manifested through clones cuz Sephiroth at this point in the story and even in the original ff7 is essentially cellular anything that's got like Jenova cells in him he can essentially manipulate or just like sort of exist in a not as powerful state that's like the whole point of Advent Children is that these through stupid three kids that are pieces of Sephiroth are not him and they they just they want to be him but they're like they're the remnants are sad because they'll their mother will never love them as much because they're not suffer off so that's like he's still that it's just that it's like Sephiroth got fed this information from the future it's like Genova knows what's gonna happen or found a way to get information from the future and through the livestream and it's it's communicated a lot even in the original ff7 I've been reading the original script a whole bunch that fate is a big talking point about time in when bogan Hagen talks about the lifestream like there's already there's already hints that this stuff is already connected to time right but things are a constant that they can't but but the planet is in control of it doesn't that undermine your point of Erath having to die especially if we're considering a different timeline with Zack so where it's like you can you can argue that Aerith needing to die is just as vital as Zack meaning to die legis I and yes I agree so I'll go and do want me to go into level 3 now alright no this is good I don't think it goes to 6 I think 4 is like the furthest I've seen somebody take it yeah and but level 3 I think is actually where it gets pretty interesting ok play through the game a second time and really pay attention what Aris says she Nera this super aware of what's going on yes what needs to happen and by the time she's at the end of the game she's like a different person she's like a different completely aware person she has these moments where they're like Aerith and she's sitting there just doing this stuff literally talking to the planet it's like she doesn't know what the whispers are at the beginning but by the time the end of the game happens she literally touches red 13 and tells him everything what they are so throughout the events of Final Fantasy 7 remake Aerith is communicating to the planet and the planet is dishing her information of what is happening what's gonna happen and she is completely like onboard she's like all right well we got to hit these boat these these notes you can't fall in love with me I'm gonna tell you that this is important everything about him is wrong everything she says is aware and the part that I love about it is that we only have two characters in this game that actually know what's going on it's the two characters that are connected to the planet the most Sephiroth and Aerith and they're essentially trying to undermine each other at this point it's like Aerith is the one thing that's actually keeping the entire party safe and Sephiroth is the one thing on the planet that is trying his hardest just to stop them so I agree and I kind of disagree because I do agree that the Aerith gets more decisive as the storyline goes along and more aware and I agree with a lot of what you're saying there's a difference between the way Aerith is presented in Sephiroth presented Sephiroth never shows any ambiguity ever he's like I know what is happening I know what I'm doing Aerith definitely does for as much for as many times as she says like I know what these things are I can explain them I'm talking to the planet don't fall in love with me all that stuff does happen she does have lines where she says we have to go against destiny I don't know what's gonna happen I don't know where this is gonna leave this I don't completely understand like there is some uncertainty there even very late into the game so and III do on on surface that's like that's like level 2 I do agree with you I was at where you're at I've been through this [ __ ] it's been a crazy 48 hours there is and I'm gonna talk about music there is some super very much story spoilery stuff that goes on with music and if you the first one I'm gonna say is right at the beginning and after you meet Sephiroth a really specific track plays it's a track that's not in the original Final Fantasy 7 it's called the promise and it's a track that plays when kadaj dies and at the beginning of Advent Children and it's sort of summarizing that this is this is this is an alien this stuff is not happening normal than what's going on the other big one I'm like forgetting one other but the other big one is at the end and this is where Sephiroth has ambiguity at the end Sephiroth talks completely different when you're at the precip of creationary variation Sephiroth genuinely is a different person they're like he's talking like to cloud that completely different in the way he's like super preachy and doing all this stuff like throughout the game and he sounds high and mighty he's actually talking like he knows cloud he's like seven seconds what are you gonna do with it like he's he's a different sort of person when the theme that's playing there I I read I saw this last night I didn't even realize it it's the city of the Ancients theme she's literally playing the music from city of the Ancients where Aerith dies in these moments where he's telling him how critical all this stuff is gonna be and he's just [ __ ] with cloud and I think the whole point is that he needs to get cloud to be as vulnerable as possible he's setting him up to to essentially fail so much harder than the original Kane does like he knows that the original game he fails and he still dies but I it really feels like Sephiroth in his manipulator [ __ ] which is what he does in spades in the original ff7 in like later in later installations he's just dude that chops up buildings and [ __ ] you like okay so for all these just as big crazy badass but in ff7 he's a manipulator and in this game it really feels like they hammer that [ __ ] home because he is just the entire game [ __ ] with cloud okay so this was the part that was like craziest to me this is where else like okay all bets are off is when you get a flash forward to the end credits scene of Final Fantasy 7 you see red 13 running with his child yeah yes and he's like that's the future if we fail today that's the bad bad ending yeah yes dad there's some interpretations that uh OG the original games ending what it actually is now in retrospect because people just assume Oh yeah having children to direct sequel so everyone lives like now people are really waiting the original game saying what if the og time ending actually is humanity gets played yeah and like toss I did say in an interview like a long time ago that the end of Final Fantasy 7 500 years in the future is a world devoid of humans so that's a good ending to me okay I love this stuff because your point about replayability don't max I going go and kick through again and catching all this stuff like peep and like it's gonna getting people to talk about this until the next installment comes out because like the seven seconds like people are like oh that's someone timed it that's exactly how long it takes for Sephiroth to kill Aerith in the scene yeah again it's a seven seconds like it is what will you do play the music from the part however the the seven seconds line is not referring to Aris death I I thought the exact same thing I'll watch the videos it was like the reddit thread I was like juries are almost like on point there's a hidden text in the game there's no [ __ ] Dark Souls levels of hidden text in the game you go back to chapter select and you look at that final thing where you're talking to two Sephiroth on like the edge of creation the game tells you Sephiroth gives Claude a cryptic message about seven seconds before the end of the world and I think he says I know we're leavin in the conversation it says something that like it's kind of ambiguous in the conversation you you feel like you know what he's talking about cuz it's on the edge of creation you're looking at space you're like what is this big space thing I'm looking at like what is going on here the game tells you if you go back to chapter select and you read it that they're specifically talking about that moment is the the end of everything you can take it literally they could also take it as a metaphors like the death of Erath is the end of clouds world to him because in Advent Children the whole thing is about like he can't get over the death he feels like he literally died and stuff so like if avid children is this game's future and that set off is from this future then like those like you have to believe that like cloud might end up in that state where like he carries this weight that he disconnects ed to me I'm yeah I'm like positive this is some Harry Potter stuff where it's gonna pay off minigames from now it won't even we won't even talk about the swords in the next game I yeah you guys are talking about level three and four [ __ ] and I was like oh great this is gonna clear it up for me I'm more confused now than I was before I started this [ __ ] conversation man are you ready are you ready three to four essentially starts going into how the next games are going to be why is there an alternate timeline what the [ __ ] is Biggs doing alive it's Jesse alive like are they in the same world together like why is this [ __ ] happening and I will guarantee you there are clear things that are not explained like Zack being alive the only thing that we have no minute of evidence that Zack existence is not in the same world as cloud did a very obvious bag stain right like a sand bag that flies by is a and I went back to the game it's a different bag it's a different character it's not another brand of bag like it says original at the top left I'm like well maybe this one's like spicy stamp chips and the other ones original stamp chips and it's just a red herring now it's like very obviously showing that this world is different something this this this this is the singularity event that was seen throughout all timelines changed everything for what's what's going on to our care and that's the big yellow globe this toggle okay and I was confused by this for a while too like when with all the the wisps are essentially focused on Midgar because everything bad is happening at Midgar right Midgar is where our characters are supposed to go but Sephiroth is there and he's messing with [ __ ] all the wisps are covering Midgar like a dome the cutscene they show immediately after is Zach walking around in the past and he doesn't see it but we see the same dome it's not that the dome is happening in the past is that it's happening period it's transcending time so no matter where our characters are at any time this singularity that happens throughout the past the future the present is going to affect everything butterfly effect the same way Sephiroth did so now when you get Zach and he fights all the dudes the singularity blows up because the wisps are obviously occupied fighting our main party and it ends up that zach lives but that's still a different zach right it's so fundamentally not the same cloud not same Zack in some place in a completely alternate existence Zack made it out and made it to Midgar with cloud and cloud becomes I don't know a barista or some [ __ ] like he's they're gonna be different fundamental career weight you know assuming assuming that right I think I think it being a different time line is pretty obvious but who's to say how many permutations there are and the effect that they have on each other like is that and that's where that's where I I don't have an answer for you the handling of this timeline stuff is a very sketchy thing right we've we've seen some fiction that obviously do this Back to the Future stuff because this game is very much back to the future - right we're going we're going back and there's an alternate timeline now there's the original events that we're trying to follow but now our characters are in this weird middle path that they're trying to eventually fix and then suddenly in the end you realize there's another path that's being taken and III don't think there's direct any evidence in the game to lead us to a conclusion that we know what's gonna happen with yeah I think that is less variable what's interesting though is I did really I would like wondered how he saw that but the final area is called the singularity like that's totally fair right but yeah absolutely makes sense and the the final chapter is the crossroads of destiny it's talking the fact that Aerith and and Zack are at a crossroad they're not going to meet each other it's like their destiny to meet each other right but they're just not going to cuz they are existing in two different realities I bet there's a third point we have not seen yet a third a third timeline all we've seen Zack in one spot we've seen cloud era than the present was like future Sephiroth if it's reaching I think there's one more point because these things usually come in threes with like that the time loop stuff like yeah things like if they're gonna like if it's like closed or whatever loop something like that I bet at some point we see a third spot where like the wisp with the whispers are all like gathered together and like got obliterated and something else was changed because I well I think this I think Biggs is the other there's the other thing to show that right like the big thing is so we're not sure whether or not that in future of Zach's time no we're not we're not we don't know because this we don't we don't see anything it's clearly indicates that I think of what this really mean Trent will translate into potentially in the next part or parts is that I wouldn't be surprised we jump around and play like is that like we might expect to play as Zach it's a movie game now are we gonna be Zach Laguna style where it's like suddenly cloud falls asleep and then you wake up and you're Zach doing something completely different and then you're talking to arathor what's going on like how they handle that I have no I yeah but I expect something like that at this point like I wouldn't be surprised if they did something like that I wanted to check in with with with Brad really quick right is this kind of like the same conclusions that you were you were coming to based on all this is deviating a lot no this is Qatar I've had a log a long time to think about all this I did the review site on a long time something about there's no way I don't like I've kind of been here I've been watching your shoes every now and then like I'm getting like the brain has been growing the levels ah yeah it's like blood-borne it's like yeah so I had a theory that I was talking to people about that I actually think there are other characters in the game who's backstories are not critical to the plot but could become critical to the plot based on how they been gets it the timeline and I think I think Jesse's one of those characters oh I think Leslie is one of those characters because like I had a criticism and I've had this criticism for days where I'm like okay this Leslie storyline is interesting but it sucks it feels completely it's soft like I can't even I don't know why they're doing this but if you go and you you taught you do this Laguna style storytelling that you're talk historian is a way to illustrate all the changes in what is happening with this character are you guys ready for more level three yeah already here's here's how and this is this is more like predictions of why they did it and where it's going Jesse gold saucer yeah I think she'll be enough to play there Jesse had tells you constantly throughout the game that she wanted to be the leading lady at the golden saucer the game gives you all these moments and side story things that she just never got to have her dream that she she essentially dies in this in this plight to save the world but she never got to do she never got to be the leading lady you know mm-hmm you and cloud and everyone else are trying to get to golden saucer you're repeating the events of Final Fantasy seven you have more knowledge of what's going on you get to the golden saucer you go to the play and Jesse is the leading lady in the play and your dad is in the audience and her dad is in the audience and they have no idea who you are yeah the no III you know I no memory of what happened no knowledge of like avalanche the the time thing has modified so much weird stuff throughout the the world that like some things that should have transpired with certain characters that were being manipulated by the ghost just never happens so now jesse has no clue who cloud or Barrett or anybody is and they just like what's going on but guess what comes right after soon after golden saucer to ask these really important questions Mugen Hagen a cosmic n yeah and Bugan Hagen is gonna know exactly what the hell's going on yes gonna be like time and the planet are one in the same like the future past and present are are don't mean nothing to the planet he's gonna show you around back to the introduced I think where he goes through all the same stuff of the original game describing life and everything like that but Klausen to be like I'm having visions like I'm seeing stuff that's not happening I'm visioning myself killing Aerith right like because in the original game cloud has this extreme these extreme moments where he almost kills Erath and temple of the ancients it's not handled well because it's like bunk like he slaps her lead or something like that but it's implied that like cloud injures Arif at temple of the ancients when the black materia shows up but he just loses himself and then obviously before Aerith dies in the original he almost kills her he almost goes through the whole process what they're setting up is that cloud is gonna still have visions of the future but now he's and have visions of this situation that is extremely emotional where he's the one that kills Aerith he's the one that delivers the final blow and they're gonna spring back throughout the whole game and Claude doesn't know what it means he doesn't know if he's the one that's gonna kill Aerith he doesn't know who is it gonna be but the closer it gets to that moment the more it's gonna happen the more he's gonna realize I'm not gonna let it happen I'm not gonna be the one to do it we are going to save her he's gonna have conversations with her even right there's gonna be like moments where he is completely like aware of the original ff7 this is level 3 interpretation but considering what they've set up I truly feel like that's what they're setting up for so that she dies anyway so that they take that away from you like a whole point of Sephiroth is that Sephiroth is giving the player the idea that you're in control gives me hope yeah yeah Sephiroth is giving you hope yes a fraud gift I give you despair gives the despair dude the children is kicking in yeah he likes isn't something about that it really does oh yeah holy [ __ ] but but that makes me think once once okay so let's say everything happens as you're describing and you go and you have the conversation with booty hanging and all this is revealed does that mean the remake will still care about the black materia or will that story let you know like that this is any has anything changed at this point that sephiroth's body still needs to get the black materia to summon meteor that Sephiroth still needs to become like one with the lifestream and stuff it's a channeling well they have to fight to sephiroth's uh well they think of it like this like like I was saying earlier this sephiroth that's still showing up and gonna be manipulating cloud and in his head is that much different than the original ff7 no it's not like yeah it's just that Sephiroth knows more on a cellular level which is Sephiroth now and now on a level that controls time Sephiroth understands what's gonna happen to him it's not like a literal Fano situation where he like you know time stone type stuff and I went there and I came back and I'm a different version you can think of Sephiroth as being like a constant but he is just he is now a constant permutation oh no no no a so right like he's a constant so it's not like your your fighting oh I'm specifically fighting Advent Children Sephiroth you're just fighting a sefirot that knows way more that is like capable of more because in Sephiroth is just a manifestation until you get to the top of the planet he doesn't have the power to drop meteor and just start to start [ __ ] immediately he still needs cloud for something we don't know what but he needs he and it could be obvious like he just needs cloud doesn't bring in materia to bring in the materia maybe it says obvious as the original game but it seems pretty clear that if suffer us aware of the events of the original game his scope is going to be way different like he's gonna want to do things that are better way different is this making any sense Ben yes it's making complete and he wanted this squad to kill the whispers too right yeah dude you guys ready you guys ready for some more level 3 [ __ ] whispers yeah dude I I had to be sent this from a friend some top men because no one was making this observation everyone thought because the IGN video was saying how you fight these three whispers that our future manifestations as the game says and they have a gun they have a sword and they have gloves and everyone interprets it as you're fighting Tifa cloud and Barret it's like wow it's their future selves interesting wonder what that means because you're like you know confronting yourself sort of thing however however you start paying attention to what they do and what they look like one doesn't have an arm gun it's got two guns yeah one doesn't have a giant Buster Sword it's got just a sword in one hand another has a glove so it's like oh it's Tifa but it only has one glove a giant one their laws Josue and Kadosh from the future they can in an existence where time doesn't make any sense where they can just be whatever they want powerfully they are the Advent Children and if you go back and you actually look at their moves their attack moves are the same as the movie they do the same attacks as the movie guys so it also looked it up at their elements the lightning the wind and the fire are actually the same elements that they are in some Ultima see a book or you know some some fiction I didn't even know existed because these characters suck in Advent Children and I agree I don't want those characters to come back but the idea that by the time you enter that portal Sephiroth is already in control of the wisps and in control of time he's already manipulating his remnants to do his bidding for him and that he's asking his commanding Cloud to kill them he's commanding him take them out because I want you to feel like you have control of fate now like why if it was cloud be a Tifa and Barret that would make a lot more sense but what did they do right after you fight them all individually do you remember Ben yeah they they fuse babies they fuse into what Oh Bahamut they fuse into pom who are they some yes so at that point you have to come to the conclusion that Oh set for a sorting and control of whisper ghosts and destiny and [ __ ] he already and what is the big ghost called what's the big thing like when you kill all the tiny ones and get the fight like yeah easily kingdom hearts guy is it arbiter of fate it's like I think it's something harbinger of curvature okay okay do you remember what Vincent calls Sephiroth and Advent Children no I calamities calamities dark harbinger its Sephiroth from way in the future controlling fate you know max I understand what you mean like the levels get [ __ ] crazy dude like like and once you start putting this stuff together and I'm like this is this is ridiculous this is like blood-borne levels of [ __ ] did they actually think this through because it feels like they have no [ __ ] idea what's going on with the story of these characters by the end and now I'm like I'm playing Final Fantasy 7 back to the future holy [ __ ] man like that I don't know where things are gonna go but I'm actually personally confident that our characters are going to go on the same path they're going to still we're still gonna go to come we're gonna get clouds still going to be like the unreliable narrator like that still has to happen Hojo didn't ruin that by saying you're in soldier now you are and then they get two tickets whisked away with perspective we're like oh my god that's such a spoiler what the [ __ ] is going on with the story what are they doing and I felt the same way but without context to someone that has no idea cloud still gets to be the unreliable narrator he gets to describe what happened in soldier and what happened to Nibelheim like all the same events still get to transpire it's just that the stakes potentially are higher now because Sephiroth's intentions are now different he needs to do the events original ff7 but he needs to do something else with cloud okay wait wait wait wait wait wait so we were talking about Sephiroth most emotionally manipulating cloud when we brought up like Jessie as an example do you think with the way that they introduced Tifa and her father dying that that is also a point that they would use the Sephiroth would use against cloud to further like would that also be a point that would change and you get to see that change uh so you mean the flashback ascend flashback tifa's in the cowboy hat she's over her dead father's I hate this scene yeah yes but they but they make it very prominent in multiple times in part one of the remake what that happens in the original yes true I'm just saying like is that something else that could change could could more of be behind change all order this grand manipulation you think like genis this is gonna be floating around in the back so so like and yeah I think that's where you're thinking right you're like oh is is all the goofy [ __ ] from the previous games gonna make its way into Nabal hime no I'm just you've really got me on the hook and I love everything that you're talking about with not only the narrative being so well thought out and connected in a way that is logical if you actually managed to connect all the points yeah but it's not it's convoluted as [ __ ] just as much as the original story brave I'm not even complain about the convoluted I'm just wondering like everything that you're saying with the idea of Sephiroth changing things to hurt cloud I think is really interesting as a character and as a villain and so my question is I wonder what the extent is what the scope is of that manipulation and how we're gonna see that manifest with events from the original game hears and and here's my once again like level this is around level three theory this deck that pulls under the timeline stuff right we're seemingly going to have Zach in an alternate timeline that is replacing cloud that potentially and I thought how like how crazy would that this would be if this they're four months later into this game they they release Final Fantasy 7 remake another time and it's the a bombing mission and you start the bombing mission and Zach jumps off the train and you're like what the hell and you get to experience the characters and Zach doing a slightly different but similar things in battle as cloud does and play it I mean that sounds awesome right that sounds like really cool but I'm not saying that's gonna happen but that's essentially what they're sort of setting up that in an alternate reality zach is taking the place of cloud why would they be setting up an alternate reality where zach is alive and I only hope it's not so that zach and cloud can like talk to each other and the timelines can merge and you know they get wicked whispers of them in their journey with cloud and his journey and they're like aware of it I think that would genuinely suck if they did that it wouldn't have to be that though because what you're saying if I do make that game it would just be a way it'd be a vehicle for explaining with what they're trying to do with the story exactly and there could be moments you know throughout the story of the original game where you get an idea of what's going on that zach is alive somewhere that are that are sort of sprinkled throughout but theoretically why would they do that where is this all going like where eventually these timelines gotta do there's a point there has 14 alive and it the more I started thinking about it the more I started talking about it that point is Aerys death the whole the set up why zach is alive that you can twist the knife even further on aerith's death where it's not just cloud that's losing her it's also Zach they both are gonna lose her if there's one thing that our characters are gonna are gonna try to believe that Sephiroth wants their characters to believe since he's in so much control now he wants our characters to think that you can save her right they want they want to be aware that she is like savable in some way or something like that and the best to me like without removing the heart of Final Fantasy 7 which is Aerith dying and dealing with loss because the theme of the game is life and by accompaniment death you make it way worse right you make it so much worse because you've instilled hope in the player and you've given Zach something to live for along with cloud and then you take it away but how cool would that be if you not only get to experience that moment in another part of the remake as cloud but if you also get to experience that in a completely playable segment as Zach like that and that's all I don't that point right and it emphasizes that point that's where I don't I don't know how they're gonna handle that right I don't I don't want to see like a split screen of cloud and Zach going boom you know you're safe for style Fred I don't I don't want that like and the reason I'm confident that it'll be okay is because the story elements of remake and the way they're handled and the character dialogue is so good I can only imagine how [ __ ] heart-wrenching that is going to be once if they're able to pull it off on the same level the story beats of this game are because the story beats of this game that actually are like emotionally resonant are super emotionally resonant like they do a very good job of making you give a [ __ ] about our characters so much and figuring out what cloud is and why is he going through this stuff and Aerith the sweet girl but she seems to be leading on more than she seems and Tifa just wants to get to know more about cloud isn't alluding to the fact that even clouds kind of they're doing a very good job at preserving original ff7 so in my in my opinion i can only see them preserving the original and amplifying it just as much as they did for part one and though i think that's the whole reason why this timeline stuff is happening they just want to amplify her death so the point of which you as the player you're given a little bit of hope right you're thinking maybe we can do something about it so eventually the crossroad happens and she dies no matter what it's a constant there are things that happen there's singularities that happen in time where you just can't avoid it and despite everything of our characters efforts in the future no matter what they do she dies so it's time to subscribe to your stream anyone oh and I any I also sort of think about the timeline stuff this is like this is almost like level for cloud and Sephiroth team up for the final battle I'm sorry cloud and Zack team up for the very final battle and meet and they're finally they're finally together again like what what both of them always wanted to like be together and be friends and they are to finally kill Sephiroth in the end game like the super end game and that's how you amplify the end with Sephiroth that's how you amplify the end of Final Fantasy 7 cloud and Zack finally meet up and then once Sephiroth is gone there's no reason for timelines anymore and Zack is gone Astra's cloud and then you're just left at the original ff7 so I this is this is like huge brain after you after thinking about all this stuff for so long that's that's like the huge brain [ __ ] that's kicking in and I'm gonna give you the last piece of level 4 are you ready no III was I have had quite a few people tell me this and um I I thought it was like that's no [ __ ] way and then it hit me the final shot of Final Fantasy 7 original is Aerith as holy comes in and sweeps across the land yeah and she uses the lifestream to save everyone and it's that dude dude and you see her face cloud gets a vision of that literal moment in this game he hears the dude dude and he sees he like feels the emotion at the end of Final Fantasy 7 and he doesn't know what the hell's going on level 4 Omega insight 99 blood-borne brain is that that shot of Erath at the end of Final Fantasy 7 original continues directly over to the shot of Erath in Final Fantasy 7 remake where she is essentially being like through time delivered from the end of ff7 to the beginning of remake and she wakes up and she's aware and she looks at Curtis he looks around and she hears Sephiroth she feels his presence because the planet needs her to go back the planet and like needs her to return to the original events and start and start assisting the party to make sure she's like she she is like the obi-wan sort of making sure everyone sort of does what they need to do and the end of ff7 original just that same shot is directly connected to Aerith opening her eyes and she's like aware oh okay is that froth around nope I feel them you hear his [ __ ] music at the beginning of the game signifying that this is different than the original ff7 the like the feather dropping when Davout is in the reactor Sephiroth is already there he's already like his presence can be felt Aerith is aware of his presence that like this does it like you hear the music at the beginning so that's Omega level for brain right that's that's the furthest I could possibly go I'm not even on board with all of that yet but the only thing that really supports it is that Sepphoris theme is at the beginning cloud sees sepharose black-winged at the beginning and Sephiroth never gets a black winged feather thing until the end of Advent Children he doesn't have it in crisis core he doesn't have it at the end of ff7 he has it in like Dissidia and stuff like that because they changed his design but he gets the black wing because he's like an upgraded version of Sephiroth right he's evolving but cloud the black wing of Sephiroth is is there throughout all of everything you remember the key art at ff7 effort yes in the first thing is the first thing they show you Kotani literally said we have a special piece of key art and there's a unique design to Sephiroth I hope everyone will appreciate it or like I hope everyone you know is able to pull some information out of this these guys were setting us up for three years those bastards they were it was in front of our noses the whole time that this is Sephiroth from the future yet he's coming back I'm like they got us this is the plan the whole time so welcome to level 4 yeah I don't know feels good when they I don't know whether to be overjoyed that you're illuminating so much just upset that the other parts are ruined now which parts I mean I I'm making a joke and saying that you're spoiled like I'm just gonna be buying it I'm gonna be like [ __ ] max if I just like the way the way things are going it just it just makes sense like it does mess up it feels like almost this timeline stuff is a red herring to make you to make you feel like oh maybe we're gonna be able to do something about it I could be wrong right like this cloud and Zack could walk away at the end of that scene in the rain and Zack could get shot in the back yeah just like the original game and and then cloud has memories of it so I don't they leave so much open to interpretation in the end but they sprinkle so much of this [ __ ] throughout the entire game like the whole game I I noticed just last night and I put it on Twitter when cloud first runs into Sephiroth at the end of the game and there he meets him right outside of like being in his head and [ __ ] and he's like you're you uh is it really you and Sephiroth starts giving him like flashbacks and stuff like that starts like infecting his mind cloud has a moment where he's just like wracked with pain like feeling all this stuff he has a no idea what he's feeling and then he suddenly grabs his left arm he starts holding his left arm like it hurts like hell and he died and there's a shot of it like there's a specific shot of its hand just like gripping his arm super hard the same arm that he had geo sticky internet band children yep they are well level four yeah this is what honestly it's what I love about Final Fantasy remake as a game is that it's given us stuff to hypothesize about yeah that you know if it was just straight up we'd just be like yeah what kind of weapons are left you know I can't we're gonna we're gonna get up there and we're gonna kill they're gonna kill her and we're gonna go take it so snowboarding yeah and so I just I love that it's given us this again basically it's almost a true remake in that it gives you more surprise and more wonder than a straight-up one-to-one remake would have and I think all of us can agree that like the way they they they sort of deliver this information to us is super not obvious it's like Dark Souls blood-borne levels of sort of subtext and the the dumptruck of all of it just falling and crashing on you or suddenly I don't think it's handled very well and it's I wish more people could like come to some of these realizations and figure it out instead of having to watch like a YouTube video on it but at the same time it's like blood-borne is my second favorite game of all time next to ff7 and it wasn't on my first playthrough I'm like yeah that was cool so weird Gothic stuff and you're fighting werewolf's and space aliens eyes it was fun and then I watched like Vaati video mmm I was like holy [ __ ] and then I played blood-borne a second time it is now one of my favorite games of all time and that that realization would made me love it so much this is the this is what I want to ask you max because everything that you're saying coming to that realization I think in any story coming to those realizations is very enjoyable and fun what I would argue about blood-borne is you don't need to come to that realization to have a very fulfilling experience you don't you don't finish blood-borne and you're like oh I don't I didn't I didn't enjoy that journey I feel like it is dense enough that whether you're at level 1 or level 4 you're getting something out of it it comes through the execution and the presentation sure I haven't seen having children in a long time but I've seen having children multiple times and I feel like I usually walk away from avid children not great feeling very unfulfilled like yeah you can go down the rabbit hole and you can come to the fulfillment of those revelations but actually sitting there and watching the movie it doesn't come across very well like the same thing as Christ asked or student extent the same thing as dirge of cerberus the same thing as all this other ff7 stuff that they've been doing for the past many years that isn't ff7 I completely agree with you dude like they are disappointing I love effing children well that movie is dumb as [ __ ] like it you have to watch like the complete edition it's like over two hours long to make it a comparable movie and it still has huge storytelling issues the characters are terrible I have no idea what's going on my unless you have deep understanding of like ff7 the concepts they set up are kind of interesting that Sephiroth lives on like through his mimetic legacy he lives on genetically I'm like okay that's the stuff they're using in this game they're not like Kadosh doesn't go up and he's not like crying don't cry laws like all this dumb [ __ ] like I just like please like kill me now like can we just get to the final fight scene and that's the only one out of Advent Children right but and here's the part where I'm like on where if this game puts me on board the things that are missing from dirge of cerberus Crisis Core and effing children aren't present in this game the characters your adoration for the characters like I have never felt a crew of characters feel more original Star Wars than the original Star Wars like it feels like these characters are like destined for greater things and they're gonna go places and there's obviously like a like stories to be told about them all because we know there is but man like the relationships in this game that they establish are so [ __ ] good and it's like some of the the best that's out there and it's this could be an ff7 fan talking but I've seen people that have no idea what Final Fantasy is that are like oh that's that sort of sort of we be Final Fantasy thing like they describe it as that and then they play ff7 like well this is cool why is this cool do I like Final Fantasy like people people will start saying that after they start playing ff7 now so I think they're trying to do what the original ff7 did yeah they're trying to get people to like Final Fantasy because Final Fantasy has been a very specific thing for the past 15 years ish that is that could be sort of hard to jump into the last time Final Fantasy was genuinely different like there was a big jumping point was in my opinion ff7 likes it was it was most RPGs before that were what sort of romps through classic medieval Dungeons and Dragons explorative worlds in many different ways I think six was obviously a bit different mm-hmm but the jump to like new technology and all this stuff with the original ff7 that's the thing that got me to play it dude I I played the original ff7 when I was like 14 years old and I thought RPGs were for nerds like Oh God these nerdy kids playing all these like Dungeons & Dragons games oh god I'm gonna play killer instict at Street Fighter this is stupid and then I just sat next to a friend one day that it was like dude you playing this Final Fantasy 7 game it's a sick like a really good friend I'm like dude that's that stupid Final Fantasy stuff right right what are you doing like RPGs what's wrong with you and it's my favorite game of all time like it that game changed me I feel like they're trying to do the same thing right that's that's the gimmick behind like this entire why they're making the characters so beloved beloved beloved why they're building you up to to have hope that characters will be savable because they want the same resonating feelings of old ff7 to happen to new people and potentially the same people that played the old game right i but with what you're talking about I feel like to really get the subversion that you are hoping for you do kind of need to go through these levels and you do need to have an appreciation for the compilation and all of this stuff yeah dude it it feels like this game is a sequel right it's night it does feel like a sequel yes it is so I mean and I I agree with you I think like this super open endedness of it leaves people sort of confused emulates the feelings that we kind of had with the original with not knowing who zach is with you know we're gonna venture out into the open world and we're gonna be blown away potentially by wow the world is so much bigger and expansive than the original ff7 it feels like they want to capture these emotions and the only reason I think that is that my 4250 our experience with this game was nothing but that there was nothing but just like wow they made me feel like I lived in Midgar they made me feel like Midgar was a real [ __ ] place with real characters and that was like I keep I had to like take myself away from the weird-ass ending and reflect on the 95% of the game where everything was the most the the most beautiful remake I could have possibly have imagined and then the dump truck rolls in and it's like drop all this [ __ ] on you so it's I think it could have been done better I appreciate that it has subtext and replayability for story but it's it's so unique and bold and and like weird and I only I my fears are quelled with the fact that 95% of this game was incredible yeah like 95% is exactly what I wanted and so and more the way I rate it is like was it fair right because I don't really see it as a dump truck I feel like hey at least if they planted the seeds I'm cool with it like there's moments where they say like what are those ghost things they seem to attack Jesse for some reason like they said that out loud right yeah so I feel like if you give enough of those hints it's it's it's on the table it's it's fair enough for and there there is hints like that we just talked about like every single time the ghosts do something it is not just some random you know the fans getting in the way and preserving the original timeline I think that meta is super true right I think it's definitely a metaphor for the developers to surprise you in different ways than the original but they already did that with this game right they already they made Hell House a giant incredible boss fight they they did not spend a half-hour in Hell house that people were talking about how hell house is a meme yeah it's how do you have Hell House how do you have Hell house in a world of Final Fantasy 7 that looks like this it's impossible how do you have cross-dressing and 20 in a world like this it's impossible and they just they don't even I don't even think they did it they just destroyed it like they they did it so well that okay they they get it I have complete faith like the things that were super weird in the end don't change the fact that the elements that I think were handled so exemplary of of honoring ff7 and its fans and potentially new fans I could just see that that's where they're going they just want to amplify everything to make it hit and hurt even more when it eventually does happen it's funny that we started this conversation talking about how this feels like squares and and we're like really the reason why squaresoft had the impeccable reputation that they did is you know again I'm generalizing here but for the most part when squaresoft made something it was so purposeful they had something to say they had a way in which today wanted you experience a story that no one else was doing right you talked about the subversion with 597 and going against what other RPGs were doing at the time yeah that that is what this feels like and I think that's that's why it's so exciting like there I feel like there are so many things that are good now with games but they're not exciting and I do this because this feels purposeful yeah and I had somebody and I was watching some other streamers that I love and they're just like this just feels like garbage right their impression is like this this is high quality garbage is what it is oh and then essentially Myrtle hi I I realized their perspective is that they played the original ff7 with the perspective of the 90s the perspective that we were in a medium where every year there were monumental leaps in this industry that if you looked at a game at the beginning of a console it looked like it could be two console generations ahead of it by the end like a Final Fantasy 9 in comparison to Final Fantasy 7 like it's the technology was so rapidly growing and to be completely Frank since the Xbox 360 and ps3 generation we've essentially just been upgrading loading times resolution textures things like that there hasn't been like giant monumental strides the only one I would argue is VR yes like VR Resident Evil 7vr was like an experience that I cannot like that that [ __ ] changed like my perspective on games and I loved it but in terms of like the big how has video games just monumental this game was like Resident Evil 4 right the God of War the Final Fantasy 7 is the half-life's like right all that kind of stuff the dooms its and some people would argue like Last of Us is definitely one but Last of Us like is what it is because of such incredible storytelling I think it was monumental like storytelling in a game yeah the quality of that was so high but in terms of like gameplay it's it's like a boiled boiled-down uncharted in in many ways but just done with the most incredible characters and story as this is talking as somebody that arguably and I'm not arguably but admittedly I haven't played all of last of us just because the gameplay didn't grab me I just I know the story and I watched like people play it but I just couldn't like what we were doing as characters just never grabbed me but I will say that game deserves all the merit in the world because it it it was monumental to the industry as it grabbed people right it made people truly give a [ __ ] about its characters and that's tremendous so much of the point where it's it's the medium of storytelling right we were evolving as videogames so to expect that like Final Fantasy 7 remake you know like this thing that that practically evolved the industry is gonna do the same thing again that's that's like the expectations thing where you I think that's a little too high of an expectation right like it's you feel the same way the original game was like insane when it came out yeah like now I mean just like I'm like even though I'm marketing budget that game like how I was treated and looked at it was like nothing like that at the time yeah you saw video game stuff on Pepsi cans yeah it it was like this is crazy like how is videogames infected real-life now like that that never really has had happened before that outside of like mario nintendo stuff yeah yeah yeah but i mean that is that is an impossible goal you can't you can't be a studio and be like okay we're going to do that because it's it's not like a tangible thing you know i think you can say we have something that we want to say about this story we have a way that we want to make you feel yeah i think i think those are a lot more achievable and based on this conversation if that is what they're going for even if it doesn't work out exactly as we all individually hope no I think that ambition is commendable and you could feel that ambition in part one like yeah like what the number one thing I was like man how bad are you gonna feel when the plate Falls how how tremendously I'll tremendous to be dreary is that going to be and the music the way all the dialogue is with the characters around you the way you feel as a play is just it's soul-crushing yeah after after the plate falls it's like my god man what are they gonna do when she dies like holy [ __ ] like it's what are they going for when I think about things that are you know unique to video games as a medium what I really like about that is there is such a long time where I was you know I I play very late at night right and I'm like okay I'll just I'll stop playing when I get back to sector seven and you know get back to my hotel room and that realization took so long or it's like I'm never getting back to that hotel room you know and just you know from a videogame perspective of having this area that you were cool in you were doing your side quests in and just having it destroy it actually has I think a greater impact in some way from this discomfort that you had already Priya style yeah you you just yeah that's actually a great point that I didn't even realize if you didn't do all the side quests in Sector seven well screw you it's gone yeah like you can't go back and do that stuff now you're have to play the game again yeah like that's actually kind of cool it's like dirt so there are some things that are kind of kind of interesting that sort of happened in some of the side quests at the original outside of finding cats and things like that I knew until the side quests in Sector seven of the weakest of all the side quests and then they get kind of interesting and obviously woolmarket which is like the best chapter in the game it's up and down like there there's there's degrees of quality so much of the point it like it feels so much like Yoko so it's it's the same like I'm doing stupid mundane [ __ ] and then I'm doing really interesting character gross stuff and then stupid mundane [ __ ] playing all over again if it feels grindy though at least there's that yeah I don't I don't think it feels grandi I feel at least there's they try to have the characters communicate enough and you know do something at least right dude I hate behemoth fight it was sick man Oh God play the the VR one where he's like a mid i watch you play oh yeah actually oh just VR set yeah yeah Hojo's VR at the end of the game has hard mode just see your faces in there dude and there's the others monsters that aren't in the game at all my yeah yeah they're gonna use these in part two like you're gonna run the suit and it's gonna be sick go ahead I was actually disappointed with because you fight a behemoth in an early cyclist yeah and the way that they set it up is so sick because you go through that area and it's like you hear roaring and I was like I enemies don't get contextualized this well in game and I'll be like it's a behemoth one of the most famous final fantasy monsters this is so [ __ ] sick and you uh I was jumping up and down with excitement I was like grabbing my I feel like we're gonna fight a behemoth and then I go and I fight the behemoth I'm like this is the easiest [ __ ] ever I'm so disappointed but it's nice that there is a difficult behemoth that you can access later on but I was disappointed in the initial battle and the underground had occurred in the underground map that was disappointed it was disappointing in that I felt just for me in my own mental build up got it the the the difficulty and the mechanics were not oh you wanted like a huge spectacular difficult challenge boss fight kind of thing for a bit I just felt like with the way that they were building it up and I may have been off base but it didn't feel that far removed from a normal fight versus like the build up what's the game at fight the initial thinking it's called a proto behemoth to it I think it's like a type zero zero be a little weaker the real behemoth shows up in a tube ER later yeah yeah yeah and then and then have you guys actually tried a little bit of hard mode yeah yeah not yet I'm kind of the way that I'm like mentally category in this game is I'm trying to do everything in normal and it's like okay once I check all that stuff off then I'll go and do that's I'm gonna sell you on it right now you go fight the guard scorpion I'm gonna not spoil much as I want you to experience it you go fight the guard scorpion and it seems like a relatively normal guard scorpion fight he's like oh he's just doing more damage and I'm doing less damage okay let's go whup his ass this all does have to be a little cautious and then Barretts like get behind the rubble or bare cause like get behind the rubbles so you do it and then one character's protected and you start fighting and he lasers the [ __ ] out of the other here and then he immensely does like right as it's done he lasers the hell out of both of you so he has completely new moves they take this yeah they take the things that you're like oh I remember your weakness this is what I do oh [ __ ] wait oh where now and just the whole idea of like hey you can't [ __ ] use items that completely makes you re-evaluate materia than you could on an initial playthrough which is yeah it man in back have benches either I will say that chakra and in prayer yeah are super commanded keep it next we're talking about the manuscripts and I think there's a really awesome synergy between gameplay design and wanting to go back and get more of the story because you're like this is better in in subsequent playthroughs it's it's not just subsequent playthroughs like chapter selection is enriched and I actually think it's genius that you get I think it's like double experience a triple AP or something yeah you know once you finish the game yeah I think that is like a practical incentive for you going back and replaying and it keeps it fun because you're getting more rewards yeah also getting new story bits yeah the game wants you to be level 50 right it wants you to be at max level but the but like you're getting you're getting satisfied in multiple ways way where you're you're the progression like you feel like the the shackles of progression or lifted off your characters are growing you have to think about combat in different ways but you're also getting a new perspective on the story like these things are lining up and merging there's the reason why there's new game+ like right they they stay like all right we showed you a lot of crazy [ __ ] if you go back and you start playing again and start actually paying attention to sephiroth's motivations start fighting in different ways that are different you have new perspective on how battles are so we're gonna flip that on its head it's like it's like the best situation of subverting expectations without going the Star Wars route you know and and not - I'm not saying anything about Star Wars but all I'm saying is that this game does a lot to subvert your expectations but they do it in a way that seems completely smart like really thought out like they they genuinely have been thinking about this [ __ ] for like 10 years if we were to eventually do this how would we do it what's the best way do we make it exactly like the old ones we make it a sequel do we make it just like cloud picks up the sword and you essentially do Advent Children and do more after that like do we do that or do we have her experience our players experience Final Fantasy seven and we're gonna try to give them the same experience they had before but we want you to feel the Wonder we want you to feel the feet the same feelings like we don't want your memories to essentially be the guide like your your perspective on ff7 has a lot to say in this game and I personally love that who's the enemy of your perspective as a player in Final Fantasy 7 remake who is the one character that's here to not just get into the characters timeline of the original game to not just mess with our main character that brought this [ __ ] with the player like and I kind of love that meta you know I kind of love that Sephiroth is so deep in this he's been he's been built up as this bad guy like everyone practically knows who Sephiroth is in many ways and if you start really looking into it like he's messing with you he's messing with your memories and I'm like I'm on board I'm I'm how is he gonna do it more I don't know I just take me and set forth like I just do that let's go like whatever this whatever road we're gonna go down here if it's gonna be weird and different if it's handled in the same way as this game super down you talked about feeling that sense of wonder and I love that it is not just from a like fleshed out characters and kind of sequel storyline that we're talking about gates why dude gameplay right that's the thing is I think what's something that is still even if you've never played it before remarkable about Final Fantasy 7 today is is how much there is to do there are so many optional things that are crazy minigames that you're doing I feel like 7 remake also tries to instill that same sense of wonder yeah with its interactivity with how the quests playout with the optional things that you can get involved in like it tries to grab that same video and purely even like lifting levers at the same gameplay standpoint yeah and I agree yes yes so and to not to not sound like a complete like ff7 remake fanboy because I critically gave this game the same score you guys gotta give it a none but I have like I have to tell my audience that I have like my critical review and then I have my personal review that was a definitely thinking about that when I was doing the review for this game yeah it's tough if you have to give it one review and as like someone that doesn't like have to like be in the same situation you guys are I can just tell people like you know what critically I think you should definitely go get this it's a 9 out of 10 for me personally this is what my favorite [ __ ] games I've ever played like I just I love it so much but I can absolutely absolutely have criticisms there are very long sequences in this game where you're just walking and looking at things and things aren't interactive and I'm like I should be fighting enemies in this really cool area I'm just not doing anything here except just moving through how beautiful it looks and normally in any other game I'm like oh my god we're just repeating the events of Final Fantasy 13 right we're just going through that again I honestly feel this is what Final Fantasy 13 should have been its Final Fantasy 13 where the sequences that are extremely linear and you're just going down and essentially just running from one part to the other just looking at stuff for the most part are okay in this game because they're amplified from incredible music fantastic looking levels and character development that happens throughout all of it right characters are just talking to each other and you're learning things about each other doing all these sick yeah yeah it's like the robot arm part you're like Kim yeah this robot arm a lot of stupid robot parts and cloud talking together so entertaining she's like high-five the [ __ ] out of me and you're like oh I don't have to deal with that stupid robot arm stuff and then you get the most one of the greatest moments in the game which is like I love this I close they they take something that is like obviously we're in like PlayStation 2 level design here guys like give me a break like what is what is going on with some of the level design in this game and luckily you're you're essentially handheld through all of that by incredible music fantastic characters and a battle system that makes me that gives me like genuine like I can't believe I'm playing this like type of feels the bow system so good because it incorporates so many elements from the original but I think the bail system is really great in this but it also leaves so much room for them to do additional stuff which I'm so excited about oh my god are you okay I want to do what you guys would think about like where the battle system lake Ariel one thing needs to definitely be the worst they almost like hits an aerial combat in part one but they could definitely expand the [ __ ] out it's just one thing in RPGs that I mean I love her she's one thing I don't like is when you have your party it feels like the rest of the party is just kind of like [ __ ] off they're not even around like you're in these conversations they're not in there I want the characters somehow to feel more involved in the fight with you later I know it's asking way too much to have like your entire party out in the field but so quit I separate them easy I don't know maybe from a technical standpoint if it was really not at the same time but if it is like a cyst yeah that's what I'm saying like something like incorporate them in combat maybe like like you should be able to switch out between them like a fancy 10 style on it yeah Damiani that's exactly yeah like a chess is ff10 oh yeah what like team up like I love team attacks and Chrono Trigger like if you could [ __ ] do team of attacks or some [ __ ] like skill just bring him in for a second yeah this game this game does give you reasons to like yeah like get one ATP after the other in fact there is materia in this game that is already hinting at sort of where they're going with the it's like it's some ATB materia that gives you a big ATP boost if you use move after move after yeah but a semester yeah yes skill Master I think that's what it is three unique moves like it moves in succession you have to do them really quickly so I'm like man just imagine in the next game if there's like dual techs or skill chains all of like Final Fantasy 11 where you get money added effect bonuses like if you do if you do star shower with Tifa and then you go into clouds blade beam it's gonna create this giant like fireball effects and but if you do it in a different combination it's gonna create a nice effect or some unique thing and if you amplify it it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and that increases the stagger gauge right like that's yeah that's that's why they like that it feels like there's a room to improve and that could be the direction that I would definitely take it does give us more cool stuff to do with with the party yeah there's definitely a like there's a lot of small quality-of-life things they can also do as well like they don't do in the next part I'm gonna be really upset they need to have material loadouts loadouts you need really annoyed we need to just give you an ability to spend an 80 B bar to swap out one materia in mid-battle like when you're playing in the second playthrough on hard maybe that's locked out but there's so many times we go into battle do the assess and like I don't have this equipped I get to do this the long way now I'm gonna be here for an hour fighting this anger because here I didn't do it right this may be it's limited to like one swap you can only use a once per battle there just needs to be some way to change like out like your elemental once or something boss and it's like hey Eris has a weapon that you could steal and you don't have [ __ ] yeah it's it's the exact same problem that original ff7 has you have so much material that is going unused most of the time and these things that you could do but you know you fix it you give you you have multiple characters that can put material on so instead of just being three party members what if all your other characters need materia on them because you can swap out to any of those other characters at any point in the future game just pop in and they you're always three characters on screen but if there's like a sub tag system in next generation hardware which is where we're most likely going to be going with this that would make a lot of sense if you can actually have access to the whole party in some way on the fly and they just have to rebalance like enemies there you having access to your whole party that's your moments at the end of the game where there are characters fighting on your on your team so I mean yeah maybe your love swapping in this game yeah it's so much fun yeah it's great one move after another after another I'm like this game is so like they're doing all similar things and the enemies like staggered everywhere like Duke this [ __ ] like the the feeling of like the game is constantly giving you choices to make and things to do is the thing I love about fighting games it's like it gives me the fighting game feels because in fighting games you constantly have to manage meter and what do I do with that and now that they're doing this I got to do this this game always has this bar that I have to fill it's always got this these these objectives that I have to complete to get to this thing and now we have to do it and now we've got a hammer at home as soon as it does happen take the oil light I liked how the game like when I saw that I was like okay I could make it bitten Barrett a melee fighter if I want to why would ever want to do that I like it he's such a specific purpose as a ranged character but then I had to get the battle Intel for getting all the the proficiency things so I was like okay well I'm going to equip Barrett with a melee weapon finally oh my god it's so [ __ ] good and it's good in a way that is different than every other melee character yeah and so it like there are a lot of things that don't feel like an afterthought and from a material standpoint from a weapons standpoint we need to target the weapon upgrading system like everything has a really strong purpose and it's so satisfying getting all those proficiencies up and it's like okay the weapon proficiencies taught me how to use this now I have access to all of them and I can shame them all together and it feels so good I love how you can use the Buster Sword throughout the whole playthrough if you wanted to yes right you can Hugh Bruce has been pretty much since UK you could stick with these weapons yeah you want to but there is like unique abilities on every weapon like one recovers MP like 50% faster and I'm like well that's a big difference like all of them have like these super unique things that they do so they're giving you like reasons to try the game in different ways and I like there's only six of them per character if there was if there was too many would almost feel like you having to make too many I'm gonna hold back a bit yeah like what they did with a like I think the only thing that was a little underutilized because I think they're holding back and also it's probably gonna be something that maybe spends more time on as the enemy skill materia yeah only four abilities right now I think they're holding back for you guys we're gonna set that loose next part the material limitations and I just didn't have steel or our enemies skill I got no enemy skills on my first playthru I'm gonna get him on hard mode so I just missed that completely and I love enemies cause one of the coolest things in the original ff7 how is Vincent not gonna be the most fun character use right like I yuffie is like one of my at least like characters in the original ff7 but she's gonna be instead of just throwing this big wheel which she doesn't the original like that's about the extent she goes through you're gonna be like she's like buffs and stuff like yeah there's like weaving signs and stuff I'm just thinking about like catchy dude and like throwing dice or something can we talk about the incredible moment where our ears are going through the saddest possible area they could be in and an anthropomorphic cats comes up and starts weeping [Laughter] traditional sometimes like it almost forgets that you know that people are gonna be so confused by it's truly weird that that human he got in his suit and it's just like hey I gotta get on top of the building right now to watch this man I don't know wait they're not in the suits remote-controlled remote-controlled excuse me what like is like piloting basically let me get it get down and look like it's crying right now I did I guarantee you he said he's in a sadly VR thing has Chadli made that for him he undermined that's a thing you get I guess I heard about chadley you get when you beat all the VR missions stuff I haven't gotten yet you get another chadley cutscene did you get a final reveal about oh yeah tell me don't say I don't yeah I got spoiled for my second playthrough weights been earphones off your phone's off I want to hear this if you're gonna hear it I all here okay it's often spoiler mode what's what's going on sadly are we are we doing it yeah he's a robot he's an Android from Hojo I wish I didn't know that he's attracted to cloud he experienced weird emotions that he doesn't understand yeah yes he's a [ __ ] Android justify being all over the place yeah he follows he's just literally battle assessing cloud like that so Joe does yeah yeah that's really cool Chatelier off comes up next game I should have headphones off I am so mad [Laughter] [Music] VR stuff at the end I want to bring up something we talk about is Roche well a soldier oh Jesus Christ rush the the Dante of promise every make day what do you guys think well like no I'm sorry I like Dante too much to him he's a model fantasy character right yeah final fantasy he's an Advent Children slash like maybe an ff10 sort of like I'm crazy yeah I'm a hyper nice too happy for having children did did you did you get the piece of dialogue a bit later when you're at aerith's house and they mention about soldiers because it's like it's even aware when he shows up that the other the other guys that are working for sit around like oh god it's that guy get the hell out of the way yeah everyone thinks everybody's afraid of them yeah it's crazy because they're sort of setting up that soldiers are not yeah Marco did the Marco [ __ ] with them they are like psycho psycho like like magic sort of like super heroes yeah and but it's gotten to all of their heads so I've kind of loved the idea that Ella Myra tells you the thing to where she's like you boys made a trade a real life for power I'm like oh my god so what are they gonna do with Roche he I'm like I wish there was more of them because I want to see more of that I want to see I want to see Roche break and I don't know if you guys also caught it earlier there's more like compilation of ff7 stuff presidents Shinra tells cloud about what happens to soldiers that they go through cellular degeneration yeah mm-hmm they go through the highest high in their possible lives that they become gods essentially and then they are there they're nothing they're taken down to nothing so they're setting up some interesting stuff for cloud there right that is very crisis core but at the same time they're sending up for moments of Roche coming back like in the future and hunting you down and he starts to generating yep and he starts realizing that he lost his life and he goes back to the way he was and he's like a husk of a person that is like don't make the same mistake I did like like they're gonna they're gonna take that same character development they've had at everybody else with this crazy hyper final fantasy character and they're gonna ground the [ __ ] out of them eventually yeah and I'm like whoa I like Roche is kind of annoying and crazy and all the characters like who's this guy like even everyone in the game is lazy everyone hates him that's all you need to it yeah yep so again if they eventually ground the [ __ ] out of him like in future games and he becomes a recurring boss but then by the time like imagine the last time you fight him once a fight but he doesn't know why he's just you'd have to kill this poor guy he just just wants to be you just wants to be ended like that's how you handle it in a certain tear any man - tear jerker gray yep crisis course it appeared like again like I just there's nothing left of them I don't know if they're gonna carry that stuff if they're gonna carry that theme to cloud in the end that cloud thinks he's going to eventually die - and he has to make decisions before he dies but that would make a lot of sense to me as that's what it goes through in Advent Children mm-hmm like he has he has this quarrel that I'm dying my son my adopted son is dying and like what do I do like with this time and maybe they can actually make it better than Advent Children this time it was a moat fest in that game maybe that's the sort of way that they're introducing that we can fix that story right we can yeah we can fix the issues we had so I I don't like Roche let me correct myself I didn't like Roche I thought he was very forgettable and I did not I was I wouldn't be surprised we didn't even talking about Roche during the spoiler mode the spoiler mode has made me super [ __ ] pumped for what they do with Roche next dudes gonna be punished eh later on man sad state later on why why are they telling you all that crate why is everyone acting the way they do around soldier why is all that stuff you know they're they're setting you up like the stuff that they set up at the beginning of the game happens like they set you up for later already so it's pretty clear where all these stories are eventually going to go unless they just say [ __ ] it and Zach's alive you don't get to play as cloud right they do something crazy like that genuinely disappointed if like these things go in no direction but considering where they've gone so far 95% of the game is is great in terms of its storytelling definitely agree with that was I gonna say oh because you're a weird thing because you retire my like with so much of your theory the level stuff talking about like Advent Children stuff only thing I wanted to add was throughout any of your playthroughs or any of you looking for Denzil I was I was looking to see if you fee was like hidden in some places I thought someone one of Fury or whatever yeah of you fee I could've seen yeah I mean that role I could have seen like URI a is like a disguised UV or anything like that like maybe but apparently she's not no she's not I mean they talked about Wutai like way more in this game yeah are you are you guys ready for some some level 4 is level 4 but I got I got another one and I also I was also sent this by Nicole this game is crazy so you remember when the game introduces that Avalanche is a cell and they are essentially that is sort of like extracted because they are deemed too hazardous right there yeah too extreme as that's how they call it but then you actually get it you actually get a scene in this game of avalanche as a cell of like oh these guys are you guys are professionals like whoa they actually understand what's going on and oh they they're actually coordinated and they're not this ragtag group like well that's actually really interesting they these guys have cloud and money and there's like an organization uh the design of those guys is identical to before crisis the cell phone game mm-hmm that game investigates what the Avalanche cell is do any of you guys know what the Avalanche cell actually is I thought they promised they'd make they said they promised like Wutai all the material Midgar something like that I had a friend I hadn't play well that was one of the operations but the original Avalanche was not like the story of like ff7 avalanches they found the bunker of theirs abandon because at lunch has existed for a long time and and they they they co-opted their thing basically so they're not the barrett of them are not the real avalanche their duty like their eco stuff is not what avalanche was avalanche was like fighting a war against like the Turks and Shinra for like forever with like they for Wutai and like it works yeah it was a massive thing I had a I had a friend tell me what like the eventual big reveal is because there's a big twist at the end of before crisis and I I'm reluctant because I could be spoiling you guys on on my story element for future games are you ready yeah Mike got it yeah yeah it was all him because he wanted to subvert his father yeah yeah the average sell yeah he's actually a a subdivision of Shinra they're like they're like plants to lure out people that are fighters for the planet to eventually get rid of them that's gonna make sense that's really cool so eventually like eventually in this story for Final Fantasy 7 remake completely different than the original we're going to take our character that feel like they're a part of a bigger plan like no Rufus got him Rufus stop it we got our characters that are that are going to be eventually feeling like they're saving the planet with a greater good they're gonna be removed from all that [ __ ] eventually they're gonna be betrayed and they're gonna realize that they're all alone and they're that that that your efforts as a team is like back to the original ff7 where it's just us against the damn world and I'm like stakes are getting bigger right right these are the things that are making me super confident about the future when you start like really looking into it like this the stakes are getting bigger for everything and it's gonna hit even harder than it was in the first game next I feel like you have me so on the hook that you could go into an explanation that like convinced me I had Jenova cells and I haven't been able to stop like people keep sending me things and the leg actually look at this wait a minute if you look at Advent Children Sephiroth summons the ghosts use the plot ghosts I'm like what watch it he totally does I'm like oh [ __ ] wait - whispers are in that movie there's there's a moment in Advent Children when when Sephiroth is addressing cloud and he's above Midgar like recommend Garr and I forget what he says to him but he like hands up to the sky and the entire sky swirls around like it does in this game and then out of the planet comes these black sort of creatures that gather and Sephiroth like absorbs them and they sort of embellish on all of Midgard just like the wisps sort of doing this game cool so I'm like all right they thought this through they have a big plan yeah they're not just winging this [ __ ] right they're not just like oh we don't know where we're going from here see you guys later like I think a lot of people are worried about that because of oh yeah I think that's that's like the situation we're in now is that you have something that is a giant piece of fandom right this is the Star Wars of video games in many ways for a lot of people I think there's a lot of reluctancy too many of us that are sort of concerned of where they're going with it because they were setting up for things before but we don't have much confidence because like the first movie was pretty good it like it was okay like I think that the force awakens is actually the best of all of them but the other movies just don't hit any of the similar notes they don't even hit nostalgic notes at that point so the only thing I'm confident about that Final Fantasy 7 remake isn't doing that like I said 95% of this game is dreams like it's just like how is the combat the music everything looks so good how is how is the story and the characters like how is it better than it ever could have been in the original like and that's the part that keeps bringing me back I'm like okay you know what I started getting worried I'm all in me too oh yeah on the train baby I'm floored by this game also boss I mean I love this I love hearing these theories and stuff someone who's come from two fandoms where have been kissed or Kalia I mean Natsuki Noda but a game of Thrones and Zelda being completely burned by thinking you have everything figured out with all this empirical evidence and the creator's gonna say no we don't care what you had before we're doing it this way I I still expect them you deflect they know people figure this out they might change them stuff who knows like I'm still expecting it's not gonna play out as anyone said there might be some things that will happen yeah oh I agree like I think it's gonna like I absolutely think they're gonna walk the fine line of we're gonna like bring you so many new things you didn't expect and mess with you on these different levels but the same time we're actually giving you exactly what you wanted to mojo the plot points are still happening you're still learning places and they're fleshed out yeah we're also still surprising you and like that is the most impressive thing I could see them do and like I've said on the ending for a while I'm with a little bit you mechs where I don't necessarily like the like yeah the dump truck we doing here at the storytelling of it is not good and like in the singularity area like the the more Kingdom Hearts II part was like the part I was like and whatever I mean comments so cool but like this narrative Lee I'm this is this taking me so much out of it but does not just I mean as long they can do whatever they want if they like getting go crazy and [ __ ] and do break expectations if they give me less of that and more of like that Sephiroth fight at the end those is like the most bonkers holy [ __ ] thing I was like we're doing this now we're doing this crazy [ __ ] now it's like yes sure do this like break my urination there's lots of them why are we repeating a end of ff7 in point one like what the [ __ ] is going on did you guys notice that cloud tries to Omni slash several yeah Sephiroth says like not enough and I I think that like these these moments that they're eventually like building up to like these these super very Kingdom Hearts II right like they're not telling us like they are we're gonna put out and Sephiroth in the in a singularity right something that transcends time and space and I do completely agree we went from being on a bike chase of whacking a motor ball and climbing through vents to reenacting advent [ __ ] children like what the hell is going on like how is I'm suddenly dicing buildings in half and [ __ ] like there's a big disconnect here my only argument for that instead of it being like arguably like this is not great storytelling at the end is that our characters are transcending time at that point our characters are in a place where time and space doesn't really matter and it's constant so they're gonna be at their best they're gonna be in an element where they are fighting at their whatever requires them to because they are they're just existing like free of past present and future so they're in like they're in the world where they should be like at their most powerful at the end of Final Fantasy 7 which they are or even in Advent Children so and I think that's why you get the visions of Advent Children and stuff like that our characters are re-enacting their they're sort of reliving the future at that point they're fighting what are they doing they're fighting cause laws Josue and kadosh and then they're fighting so for us it's you you're essentially repeating the future and that's what's ever I'll come to us about the whole game thank you yeah I just I feel like all bets are off for the future and that's what's so exciting about it they can be there may be different party members there can be different cities it's just they've given themselves all the freedom in the world yeah I actually don't think they'll do that I I think that I I personally just think they're gonna hit all the same story beats they're just gonna be more amplified I don't I don't think like Reve is gonna be a part of the party or something like that like as a character or you know Vincent looks like a bird or a dog or a beast or I think it's gonna be fairly traditional yeah and a lot of this stuff is to make you think that it's gonna be all different mm-hmm yeah wondering is part of the fun right the wandering is part of the fun like those the wandering it like it's calm gonna be gone yeah like you'll see like Leslie know at some other parts like oh yeah we'll come back I don't think it's gonna be like dramatically different like yeah here's this third party yeah you have side quests I mean there's just also like fun less like big brain stuff to think of is like how they get approached part two with you already being like level 50 all this material like everyone's like the easiest solution everyone's like if he comes and steals your materia and you get Hannah Troy did where you lose all your powers and stuff and you got Authority yeah I'd be cool to reset the materia honestly I mean yeah then you wake up and it's all gone and then you and then you run in to work if someone saw him in their sleep and she's like I sold it yeah get it back to you like that's a great character moment you you'd now know who do he is yeah he wants to join your party you don't know if the trust or not like there you go ready to go the only weird crazy thing I didn't get to mention and all this was a how adamant my chat was since I'm a huge fan c10 fan the Shinra building the history tour how in the historical photo of the group of people Shinra the character from Final Fantasy 10 the character at the mast a kid apparently there's a picture of him as an adult in one of the photos there was a masked guy didn't know that meant anything chat is like the I chat was adamant that that is a file fancy 10 connection because they're supposed to be in the same timeline it's not and there's another like a wait till you see them do some crazy [ __ ] where we they did Zach in the past now they're gonna go back to father I was like no don't don't do this to me stop you want to know you know 100 Easter egg at best and that's pop yeah see you want to know how well this game is handling its references to the compilation of ff7 and easter eggs and cloud holding his arm they're going that far right they're not having Genesis show up and being like let me tell you about Lovelace yeah there's there is references to an assistant named did you guys did you guys see it I mean well they talked about project Dustin G but yeah like a project hojo tells the party or it says something to somebody it's about breeding with I'm gonna breed him with the soldier that has project G cells right and project that everyone is so uncomfortable about that - yeah we talked about how big of a piece of [ __ ] Hojo isn't this yeah he's like holding on like her cellular like he's talking about his mother on his cell her mother on a cellular level and how he dissected every piece and how beautiful it was and I'm like oh my god dude they are well that's Hojo alright yeah like yep that's that character it totally is no holding back like no holding back the good job with that I there's another there's another great compilation of ff7 reference in India indices core you could receive emails right and one of the emails is from somebody named kun Seoul Oh lay on your side like the whole game they're like feeding you information we don't know what's going on at HQ I think this is the same character like we don't know what's going on educate but they give you quests they give you information they give you updates they give you all this backstory like all this stuff as Zach and they're like I'm genuinely concerned about you are you okay I hope you get back to me like they try to get ahold of you when you're off your off grid and you eventually die as Zach like all these characters like want you to be safe so that you eventually die and that's why crisis it's kind of effective storytelling wise anyway one of those is console that communicates with you a lot there's a moment when cloud is climbing up because cloud knows who console is cuz you talk to them before you leave for Nibelheim where a shimmer soldier is like cloud holy [ __ ] dude I thought you got smoked yo let me go tell Khun Sol I'm like oh my god this is like they connected this like that that's how you do it right that's how you don't ignore the previous elements of the compilation and do it in a really effective way and that's all you hear about it and it's an intrusive right it doesn't mean anything to anybody who doesn't care right not at all it just means that cloud was like oh cloud didn't know people like ya was here at some point like he's not lying right and that's all that does and it just adds a nice character development moment but for people that played crisis core it's like holy [ __ ] they acknowledged like this really minor character that is actually kind of cool and mostly spoken in text form so I think it's the same soldier that cloud throws the sword at comes out on his bike like oh god don't kill me and he doesn't kill him he did they just like drive past them yeah I guess I think it's the same guy cool goddamn yeah we've been at this for two and a half hours baby I'm so sorry guys no no that's what people with people not just a chat like I want to hear perspectives and like instead of just reading and there's that perspective it's gone so I my biggest apologies of this if this if this group gathering has been me like dropping level one two three and potentially for in you all and I hope it hasn't I hope it hasn't like seemed like like insight blood-borne levels of just insane and you can actually see like where they're going considering the quality of the remake as it is already and I I genuinely had the same concerns that a lot of people did when I first saw it I was like that's a weird ending I don't like for the game being so good and they are they saying are they is this a [ __ ] you to fans sort of thing are they doing that and the more I realized when you'd hear the developers talk about Final Fantasy seven when you learned that Nomura was the one that chose for Aerith to die in the original game when you learned that katha say and no Jima who the scenario writers and the director of the original game actually wanted to kill every member of the party except for three yeah you had to choose the everyone in the original script of ff7 everyone was gonna die at the return to Midgard when you when you parachute in they're gonna die they're gonna get blown up and you would have to choose two other party members to live with you to go fight Sephiroth since gotta get a mission before the like that was that was the choice they were gonna do and Nomura had to remind them like do you remember when you then an interview get around my note remember when you guys were gonna kill everyone and instead of on not only Aerith and and katana is like what what are you talking about he's like no you guys were gonna kill every party member except three and for the end of the game and katana is like oh yeah we were gonna do that no that was no dmoz idea and I'm like did did Nomura save ff7 yeah if that level six I don't know it's sort of I get more of an instill confidence that Kingdom Hearts is the way it is and a lot of people are concerned because that's like what people know from Nomura and like Advent Children and stuff but I know the more I've played this game you don't direct character development and the story that is this game 95% of the way without a deep reverence for its characters in its world and to think that that's gonna be tossed away I don't think that's gonna happen yeah yeah I mean I don't know how this is gonna come across from an audience perspective and I want to speak for anybody else but this has given me a whole new appreciation for the game that I didn't have and that's that's really all I can ask second any conversation I love this like this was so fulfilling as a fan feeling like like my mind was opening up and all the stuff was coming in and it's it's just like it's making the whole game completely exciting all over again it's to ask for more yeah it's a it is it's just [ __ ] all this man this is slavery the thing I was like dreading the most before this came out the thing I was always gonna be scared about was we're gonna finish this game and now we have to wait for the next part but all this is making that wait even like harder now which is like no happy for the wait now actually I mean this theory and we're gonna keep finding stuff and they're gonna even more YouTube videos talking about like what's actually potentially gonna happen and yeah I it feels like it feels like we're the in the in the beginning of when like infinity war came out and everyone's like wondering what's gonna happen to like endgame and stuff and we're like that little in-between section right now we're there's like all this extreme excitement and that that movie was so good and what's gonna happen next like it kind of feels like that again actually seeing every single character from all the Final Fantasy games gonna show up at the end to kill suffer off every single I'm I'm saying that I'm gonna make an easy allies bet that at some point in Final Fantasy 7 remake cloud or Zach or Sephiroth or some of our characters will see PlayStation footage of Final Fantasy 7 alright alright alright everything's on the line it's good right like this is not a game where that seems like that's outside of the realm of possibility yeah what if they just make a new area in like pre-rendered background ff7 PS without having a dream like it's it's cloud like going to go gaga or something and talking to Zak's parents or some [ __ ] like that like this is this game actually sets up that that can't happen if I lose a bet I'll download killer instinct and spends a week trying to get good with one character hmm and what what's what would I have to bet on my end are you still gonna be are you still gonna be streaming a lot Kyle I'll be streaming time to time from time to time okay I'll bet like a hundred gift subs in your channel okay right okay let's go with that and I'm I'm predicting it going to happen you're predicting that it's not gonna not that will not happen okay all right this is gonna be a long way away but 73's from now this is some this is some like lifestream time [ __ ] happening at the moment it are take a matte gold saucer where you just play the original are counting ghosts around you right now this is super fun this is awesome really fun Thank You max for joining us on this man thank you guys for listening so enlightening with this and passional part of the livestream now like I said livestream like like that's really what it felt like to me as I was figuring this [ __ ] out it's honestly what it felt like has felt like to me since the very beginning you guys want to hear some potential the last level for thing yes give me all the levels yeah yeah go watch the original trailer from 2015 with new perspective and listen to what they say pull it up right now oh the narration like the narration okay like that's my last my last request for anyone that is like finished ff7 and you kind of see what what's going on and with the narration felt like it was describing fans right the narration felt like the same description we sort of gave the plot ghosts that it's describing the fandom of final fantasy 7 that's what makes straight that trailer so amazing but in it but it's describing the reunion it's describing ff7 oh god it's not it's describing that we're remaking the timeline that Final Fantasy 7 remake isn't describing that it's a remake it's Sephiroth remaking everything that shot a bird in cloud lock walking through the light is them all the time portal yep yeah I've seen that style probably in the final game like one of the final things they do the exact same like you you guys remember that thing that Eris said where there's uh I feel like I don't know anything anymore everyone when Erath was describing at the near the end of the game with the wisps are and she's like every time they're close to me something gets taken away from me like yeah like she herself she's like she says follow the flowers like follow the the yellow flowers and it shows a flower like wilting remember the shot from the first trailer where there's a black Sephiroth oh the feather feather from like Advent Children sefirot that falls in next to like of crimpable hour they're already alluring that she's gonna die they're already setting up for [ __ ] Jesus man yeah I was not ready when I went back and I started paying attention to all this stuff that from the key art to all this they it's been in front of our noses the whole time yeah this is genius geniuses I can't the final part and like just drop some microphone or something in like the credits just like respect take that i if they're able to pull it off right if they're able to if these things are like all these very specific hints are then I its Final Fantasy seven but better it really is that I think is going to do it for this episode of spoiler mode waiting longer than me to be honest just make sure I'm not crazy when I think because I didn't hear anything from anybody oh god it's like therapy that's a bit torture man yeah for sure I feel like I just need to watch the cat she doll breaking down emotionally like on a loop like everything to get to it repeating yeah maybe if that so state of mind right now I have I have the final thing to this is it I'm gonna let you all credit I got the last thing last thing that I remind you guys why you should be excited about the remake arm sorry part two of the remake Avalanche local florist cat rat dog or what is it rat dog rat dog yeah dog I'm like this game is incredible like that that simple moment alone is so exemplary of what like Final Fantasy 7 is and they smile a moment dude yeah that's like before you go max yeah you let our viewers listeners know where they could catch your stuff at if they want to hear more see more yes shockingly there's some Final Fantasy 7 I'm going through a playthrough right now on my main channel youtube.com slash Myles 9 to 3 or Maximillian dude on YouTube but for the majority I'm actually a huge fighting game fan funny enough ff7 original is my favorite game of all time and it still is but if you're looking for a lot of fighting game content and coverage and gameplay and theories and all this kind of stuff then you can check it out on my youtube channel in twitch at the same name Maximilian dude thank you Thank You Kyle Thank You Brad Thank You Ben for joining us as well and hope all of you are watching listening enjoyed and we'll see you next time [Music] spoiler mode final warning spoilers activated

Channel: Easy Allies

Views: 673,702

Rating: 4.9135094 out of 5

Keywords: Easy Allies, Videogames, PlayStation, games, gaming, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Final Fantasy VII, remake, FF VII, Final Fantasy, spoilers, spoilercast, Spoiler Mode, podcast, talk show

Id: Rfgw7iDZ-bo

Length: 155min 25sec (9325 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 22 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/thecurseofchris]

This is an incredible discussion of FF7R from the guys at Easy Allies, and it features Maximilian Dood as a guest! Some of the theories (or as Max says, "levels") that they bring up are fascinating.

[u/dj_scripts]

Upvoting for visibility. Very entertaining and thorough discussion. Only time will tell whether these thoughts come to fruition.

Significant spoilers from FFVII OG version for those new to the game.

[u/Shradow]

I'm like Ben, this gave me a whole new perspective and respect for the game, I can't wait to start my hard mode playthrough. I like how much detail Max talked about that shows the writers do seem to know what they're doing. I had a rough idea of stuff from the original FF7, Advent Children, and Crisis Core, but there was tons of stuff from the compilation that I definitely would not have gotten. For example I got the Kunsel reference, but I never would've figured out the Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo connection with the whisper bosses at the end.

This also helps save me time since I've been watching all of Max's streams about FF7R, but this video will allow me to skip his one stream that was only discussing the game since I imagine this video covers many of the same points, but refined by a bit of time.

[u/LoomyTheBrew]

I think Max is onto something! The levels were amazing. For those that find the 2 hour barrier too much, I have some time stamps for you.

Max's Levels Guide

Introduction to the levels: 26:00

Level 1: 30:33

Level 2: 32:10

Butterfly Effect: 34:25

Level 3: 52:40

Ben's last stand against Max: 54:39 - 55:45

Bridge to Level 4: 1:00:25

Mind blown: 1:06:00 - 1:10:25

Brain Expansion Begins; The Constant: 1:11:00

The Whispers' Identity: 1:12:35

False Control 1:14:10

Brain Expansion Evolution and Confidence: 1:15:00

Zack's Potential Role: 1:18:40

False Hope: 1:22:00

Level 4: 1:23:00

BIG BRAIN: 1:24:00 - 1:27:30

Potential holes in the theory, but also evidence to support it: 1:27:40

Kyle's Explanation of the Beauty of the Remake: 1:28:50 - 1:31:00

Max's Confidence in Amplification of Original Story Beats: 2:18:30 - 2:19:50

Concluding Thoughts; Entering the Lifestream: 2:29:50

[u/nyxnyxnyx7]

Oh i just realized there is another thread promoting this video but I"ll post the same comment anyway

Seriously, it was the best 2 and a half hours of post game processing I"ve watched so far. I recommend that everyone who has finished the game and is looking for answers to watch this.

For me, Max is definitely on point when he mentioned that the future of FF7 remake is going to amplify what we experienced rather than try to rewrite it . For example Aeriths death will still happen but it will be amplified to a very meaningful way it will be so soul-crushing when we experience it when the time comes. Think of Jessie in FF7 Remake 1. You didnt care much about her in the OG but you would have definitely felt emotional in the FF7 Remake. Now imagine doing this X 10 to Aeriths death.

AARGH the wait is so agonizing. 2 more years minimum!

[u/ryogaaa]

at around the 45min mark, max says what I've been trying to tell people for the past week. so thank you for this.

[u/bigstupidjellyfish]

I was wondering what happened to the guy from Game Trailers that got super hyped over the Remake announcement considering Game Trailers shut down but this just reminded me Easy Allies exists and I should watch this lol.

[u/LifeVitamin]

I'm speechless these guys have successfully get even more typed for part 2 every theory level max kept going in was blowing my mind if SE pull this off this could be one of the best final fantasy.

[u/Lochabr]

Spoilers for the OG

I enjoyed this very, very much, but there's still some things I don't understand. Putting aside that which we presumably aren't meant to know yet, like how Sephiroth's soul was able to traverse space and time for eg. Please correct me if I'm making a mistake here.

Firstly, why do the party actually enter the destiny crossroads at all? This seems like a huge own-goal. The whispers are trying to help them. They've saved the lives of the party over and over and over throughout this remake, and yet in this final chapter, the party find themselves wanting to go against them anyway. Is this simply because they find the idea of self-determination more appealing? Sephiroth is predestined to fail just like in the OG, but by destroying fate they're giving him a second chance. I understand that the party dont know that they're speaking to a defeated, time-travelling version of Sephiroth, but he still seemed to really easily trick them into doing his bidding. He basically just walked through the portal and said "follow me if you dare" and they did. Shouldn't the planet be screaming at Aerith in particular not to change fate?

Another thing is everything Zack. I find myself really not understanding this twist. Maybe I've got this wrong, but it's as if there are in fact three time lines, not two. OG, Remake, and whatever timeline this is that Zack is alive in. It's not clear to me why destroying fate would change the past. What is it that caused Zack not to die? What was the butterfly that caused the butterfly effect?

And then the last question is: if Sephiroth's soul can traverse time and space and interfere in the past, why didn't he just prevent his own death at the hands of Cloud at the Nibel Reactor? That would seem a lot simpler. I fear this is a bit of a plothole as it stands, but I'm hopeful they'll have answer for it.