#Final Fantasy VII Rebirth spoilers

[thefantastician]

final fantasy 7 rebirth comics

[prokopetz]

Okay, so: the premise of the Final Fantasy VII remake is that the audience's demand for the remake to follow exactly the same plot as the original has manifested as a horde of evil ghosts who intervene in order to keep the story on the expected rails, with a particular emphasis on ensuring that characters in the remake die at the same times and under the same circumstances as their original counterparts. At the end of the remake's first instalment, Cloud and friends fight and defeat the king of the Evil Plot Ghosts, an act which breaks time and creates a multiverse where everybody's fanfic is real. Sephiroth subsequently merges with all the fanfic versions of himself and becomes some sort of fucked up metanarrative god. Later, Cloud simultaneously succeeds and fails in preventing Aerith's death, which partially dislocates him from the prime narrative reality, and he begins perceiving an adjacent universe where Zack never died. The Aerith of that universe then teams up with Cloud to fight Hyperdimensional Meta Bullshit Sephiroth, a battle that ends inconclusively when Sephiroth flees, stranding Zack-lives-universe Aerith in the prime narrative reality, though only Cloud can see her. The game closes with the revelation that, unbeknownst to everyone else, Sephiroth slipped the Black Materia into Cloud's pocket during their fight, setting in motion the events of the unpublished third instalment. Have I got all that straight?

[rottenpumpkin13]

Biggs: Everyone knows Cloud is a bona fide badass!

Zack:

[bread--hood]

◇《Vincent Valentine》◇

[flowersbane]

rebirth villains, summarized: no cloud belongs to me >:(

like, bruh

leave this man’s autonomy aloooooneeee

[princessstabbity]

Aerith channeling the lifestream.

[todoggukie]

Yet with each fond remembrance, we knew those encountered were not forgotten. That someday, we would see them again. Perhaps it was no more than wishful thinking.

[mabsart]

[FFVII: Aerti]

“Don’t tease him like that, man!”

[kiiseru]

Let that righteous anger guide you...

[themidnightchimera]

Some sleepy boys

[live-one-winged-reaction]

An appreciation for Vincent being simultaneously silly and dramatic.

[prokopetz]

Leaving the meta bullshit aside, I think what I most appreciate about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is how – even more Remake, if that's possible – it manages to present a world that's just intensely weird simply by taking the casual absurdity that was completely normal for 1990s console RPGs and playing it straight in a tonal context that usually studiously avoids that sort of thing. Remake is like "okay, the original game has you fighting a killer house – what would that look like in a less cartoony milieu?", and then Rebirth is like "hold my beer".

[summonernoctis]

She was too powerful.

[bread--hood]

Cloud knows all the moves

[protemporescitor]

Foreshadowing for part 3?

[badassbarmaid]

Words aren't the only way to say how you feel.

GIF Source Credit: Wrghtandco