This text accommodates spoilers for Ultimate Fantasy VII and Ultimate Fantasy VII Rebirth.
Halfway by 1997’s Ultimate Fantasy VII, Cloud Strife walks up a small staircase and finds his companion, Aerith, kneeling on a small platform. She’s locked in prayer as holy-looking gentle streaks in by the home windows round her. That serene second provides technique to a stunning tragedy. Aerith appears at Cloud and calmly smiles earlier than the digicam pans above her head. A black shadow bursts out of the sunshine above her; it’s the villainous Sephiroth, huge sword in tow. Earlier than Cloud can course of what’s occurring, Sephiroth plunges his sword by Aerith’s again, killing her.
Her physique goes limp as Sephiroth pulls his blade out. There’s no lengthy goodbye. There’s no closure. Aerith dies.
It’s a second that traumatized a complete era of players. Irrespective of what number of occasions you play Ultimate Fantasy VII, the end result by no means adjustments. Each Cloud and the participant controlling him are left feeling like they’ve failed their most useful get together member, a healer who has spent the journey heroically defending everybody. It’s a merciless accident, one which leaves a grief-stricken Cloud questioning if may have accomplished something to avoid wasting her. Possibly if he’d proven up one second sooner, she’d nonetheless be alive.
Quite than dancing round that second, Ultimate Fantasy VII Rebirth makes that dramatic irony the main focus of its story. The remake sequel makes use of Aerith’s impending destiny as a gasoline for an emotional, character-driven story about heroes overcoming self-doubt to combat for a greater future. That method comes with a significant — and really polarizing — change to the unique ending. Whereas it’s positive to infuriate some purists, the grand finale is the precise payoff that Rebirth’s subversive story known as for.
A future with out future
Proper from Ultimate Fantasy VII Rebirth’s first chapter, it’s clear that the sequel is solely constructed round Aerith’s well-known destiny. That’s made abundantly clear proper from the beginning. Its stunning first chapter sees Zack Honest, miraculously alive after escaping his Disaster Core demise, making an attempt to rescue Cloud and the gang from Shinra custody. The operation goes all unsuitable when a helicopter crashes. Zack pulls Aerith out of the wreckage and holds her as her physique goes limp, simply because it did within the unique Ultimate Fantasy VII. For a second, it seems that Aerith is, as soon as once more, useless.
After which, whiplash.
Out of the blue, we’re again with Cloud and his friends, together with a really a lot alive Aerith, as they proceed their journey to cease Sephiroth. Everyone seems to be carrying on as if nothing’s occurred. It’s a maddening second, and one which Rebirth takes its candy time following up on. For a protracted chunk of the story, gamers are left at the hours of darkness. The place’s Zack? Are we coping with alternate universes? Is Aerith useless? These questions cling over the peppy journey for an excruciatingly very long time, with solutions teased out by a handful of cryptic interstitial scenes.
That second creates a rigidity that carries by your entire journey. Proper from the bounce, Aerith’s looming demise looks like a tangible menace. Despite the fact that the get together efficiently killed the idea of future in Ultimate Fantasy VII Remake, that doesn’t imply Aerith is protected. Tragedy can nonetheless strike at any second. However by the identical token, it’s not too late to avoid wasting her both. Regardless of being probably the most recognized spoiler in online game historical past, Rebirth efficiently turns Aerith’s destiny into a complete thriller.
That dynamic is vital to accepting how Rebirth finally subverts gaming’s most memorable sequence. Strip apart all of its wacky timeline shenanigans and also you’ll discover that Rebirth tells a grounded, human story about characters who really consider their futures are unsalvageable. Regardless of definitively regaining their free will on the finish of Remake, every member of the crew has turn into their very own worst enemy. Cloud is satisfied that he’s sure to turn into like Sephiroth, with any heat succumbing to callous indifference all through the story. Barret is petrified that his overprotective maintain over his daughter, Marlene, will suffocate her. Everyone seems to be coping with some type of grief or trauma, all of which have planted seeds of self-doubt of their heads.
In Remake, the workforce needed to overcome the God-like manifestation of future to regain their free will. In Rebirth, they need to defeat a lot fiercer foes: themselves. It’s not a low-stakes combat to tame private anxiousness; Aerith’s again is on the road.
A name to motion
En path to the Metropolis of the Ancients, Rebirth waits to play its full thematic hand till a key sequence with Zack. Halfway by the story, we lastly get a firmer thought of what’s happening in his asides. Zack finds himself in some kind of alternate timeline aside from the world we all know. There, the residents of Midgar face an impending apocalypse — one whose arrival is signaled by a fractured sky. If it takes some time to completely piece that collectively, it’s as a result of that’s arduous to glean from the individuals round Zack. Everybody in Midgar barely acknowledges the state of affairs or appears significantly excited by saving themselves. They’re resigned to their destiny.
Zack isn’t having any of that. In a brief speech, he expresses his frustrations with the truth that everybody has given up so simply. That second reveals his function as an ideal foil to Cloud. The place our blonde hero is brooding and hopeless, Zack is bright-eyed and decided. He has good cause to be too; he defied his personal demise towards all odds. Possibly his model of Gaia is past saving. Possibly Midgar’s residents are proper to assume they’re too small to stop an apocalypse. However that doesn’t imply that everybody ought to simply roll over and let it occur.
Even when confronted with the inconceivable, it’s at all times value combating for a greater future.
Zack’s name to motion lays the groundwork for Rebirth’s finale. In its penultimate chapter, Aerith’s destiny begins to really feel extra inevitable because the world fairly actually narrows. The place a lot of the recreation takes place in wide-open biomes the place gamers can stretch their legs and discover freely, Chapter 13 takes the gang to the Temple of the Ancients. It’s a protracted and linear dungeon that calls again to the restrictive degree design of Remake, again when characters have been fated to maneuver in a single predetermined path. Rebirth subtly evokes that claustrophobic feeling once more as Aerith’s dance with future approaches. The strain reaches its boiling level.
The arduous chapter pays off — not with a flashy boss combat, however with key moments of progress for our heroes. On the coronary heart of the temple, every get together member undergoes a trial the place they’re pressured to face their insecurities. They see their pasts: the individuals they’ve misplaced, their failures, the entire emotional baggage. It’s a therapeutic second, one the place everyone seems to be pressured to drag up the anchors holding them again. By the tip of it, there’s a way that the crew has averted changing into just like the hopeless residents of Zack’s timeline.
With self-defeat solid apart, they’re lastly prepared for his or her biggest problem … even when it means dealing with one other tragedy.
Schrodinger’s Aerith
Irrespective of how intimately you realize the unique Ultimate Fantasy VII, nothing can put together you for Rebirth’s last chapter. Quite than merely heading to the Metropolis of the Ancients and watching Aerith die, Cloud finds himself in a surreal sequence that just about performs like an RPG model of An American in Paris. It’s a surreal, balletic sequence whose arrival is telegraphed two chapters earlier by a efficiency of Loveless, an epic play inside the Ultimate Fantasy VII universe. It’s not only a fan service for individuals who’ve at all times wished to see a totally realized model of the play; it’s making ready gamers for the theatrical finale.
A lot of the grander plot is revealed within the finale stretch, too. We be taught that when one thing deviates from destiny, like Zack surviving a firing squad, it creates a brand new timeline. Sephiroth’s final plan is to reunite these fractured timelines, chopping out any variables in his final quest. The tougher you learn into it on a pure plot degree, the extra holes you’ll discover.
However Rebirth’s ending isn’t meant to be taken so actually; it offers in some good old style symbolism. Earlier than the massive ending, Cloud and Aerith discover themselves wandering by Zack’s world on one thing of a date. One sequence sees Cloud going to totally different avenue distributors and given a selection of presents to purchase for Aerith. It doesn’t matter what he chooses, the service provider as an alternative gives him one thing solely totally different. It’s a last manifestation of his final anxiousness: that he gained’t have a selection in Aerith’s destiny.
It’s the final second of self-reflection Cloud will get earlier than he’s pressured to lastly face his biggest worry. In a tense sequence following the dreamlike sequence, he enters the Metropolis of the Ancients and finds Aerith in a well-recognized pose. She’s as soon as once more praying, surrounded by holy gentle. Every thing begins to play out proper on cue. Black feathers fall from the sky because the digicam whips up. A black blur on the ceiling shortly positive aspects its kind. Sephiroth dives down, sword in hand. Historical past is about to repeat itself … after which, a conflict of metal.
Sephiroth’s sword doesn’t pierce Aerith; it’s intercepted by Cloud’s Buster Sword. Many years of catharsis burst out. Aerith is saved.
That aid is short-lived. In a chaotic sequence harking back to Michael Haneke’s devious Humorous Video games, we all of the sudden flash right into a extra acquainted timeline. Aerith lies bloodied, the sick results of Sephiroth’s timeline reunion. A world-bending conflict ensues, the place Cloud fights the One Winged Angel alongside each Aerith and, finally, Zack They overcome Sephiroth, however it’s one other timeline faux out. Sephiroth finally leaves Rebirth victorious. Zack is distributed again to his world, Aerith lies useless, and a grief-stricken Cloud is seemingly left torn between worlds, capable of see the dying sky of Zack’s timeline and Aerith’s ghost.
It’s so much to unpack.
What does all of it imply?
LikeRemake’s polarizing ending, the sequence is certain to antagonize Ultimate Fantasy VII purists. A justifiably important learn may go away one miffed with a “multiverse” curveball that softens gaming’s biggest tragedy. Sq. Enix doesn’t wimp out on killing Aerith, however it does give gamers the lacking closure of her 1997 demise. Rebirth has its cake and eats it too by making a Schrodinger’s Aerith: She’s each saved and killed, alive and useless. There’s even a glimmer of hope that she might be completely rescued partly three by undoing Sephiroth’s reunion.
Although it might be an emotionally sophisticated ending for followers, Rebirth couldn’t have ended another manner.
Aerith’s pseudo-death creates a multilayered conclusion for the get together’s collective arc, one which’s wealthy with nuance. Sure, Rebirth is a story of heroes overcoming self-doubt and studying that they’re masters of their very own destiny, however it’s life like in its optimism too. Even if in case you have the ability to vary one thing, that doesn’t imply you at all times can. Aerith’s deadly journey to the Metropolis of the Ancients is one thing of a suicide mission. It’s a long-standing fan principle that’s made extra express in Rebirth when the Aerith in Zack’s timeline tells Cloud that she’s going to die. Like Zack’s Disaster Core demise, she is aware of she could also be sacrificing herself to cease Sephiroth in the long run. That’s her option to make, not Cloud’s.
We don’t at all times get the possibility to avoid wasting the individuals we love. We are able to attempt our greatest to be careful for them, simply as Barret worries that he’s obsessively doing so for Marlene, however there’s no technique to totally defend somebody on this unknown journey of life. That may be irritating. Once I assume again to pals I’ve misplaced, I nonetheless have moments the place I beat myself up. Since dropping one good friend to a freak automotive accident a couple of years in the past, I’ve usually puzzled if I may have prevented it by inviting them to hang around that day. Possibly that will have pulled them away from the intersection the place he was struck by a automotive. It’s a complete fantasy, however it nonetheless haunts me infrequently. I’ve needed to work by that grief over the previous few years, and never let the at-times random inevitability of demise cease me from combating for my family members.
Cloud undergoes an identical arc in Rebirth’s finale, although it’s one which performs out on a extra supernatural scale. The second the place he briefly saves Aerith isn’t a bodily victory, however a psychological one. In that second, Cloud has totally overcome his self-defeating view of destiny. For a quick second, he sees that he’s not incapable of being a hero. He has the ability and willpower inside himself to avoid wasting Aerith. That’s not finally what occurs, however it’s not his fault, neither is it future. Life shakes out one other manner.
The empathetic great thing about Ultimate Fantasy VII Rebirth‘s subversive ending is available in the way it permits Cloud to just accept that Aerith’s demise isn’t a private failure. He did the whole lot he may to avoid wasting her, overcoming his personal nihilism to guard somebody he loves. That’s a heroic act that deserves to be celebrated, even when it doesn’t stop her homicide. Life goes on within the wake of tragedy; you may’t simply cease combating.
On the finish of the journey, there’s a rekindled willpower within the grief-stricken Cloud. He’s reborn. He’s extra motivated than ever to defeat Sephiroth, even when he’s left haunted by Aerith. He gained’t turn into just like the unhappy saps of Midgar, ready for the inevitable apocalypse to wipe all of them away. Cloud goes to combat for a greater future and the individuals he loves proper right down to his final breath, even when the percentages appear inconceivable. He is aware of he’s able to it; he’s seen his blade change historical past simply lengthy sufficient to just accept he has the ability.
Life isn’t outlined by our previous struggles. It’s the way you rise to fulfill the following problem that issues.
Ultimate Fantasy VII Rebirth is out now on PlayStation 5.
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