You are listening to Video Games to the Max. Hello, and welcome to
a special edition of Video Games to the Max. I am your host,
of course, Sean Garmer with me. This game is so big, Foul
Fantasy Snark. We had to have a huge panel to talk about and give
spoiler thoughts and non spoiler thoughts on Foul Fantasy seven Rebirth. So if you're
if you're listening later on podcasts, this is going to be weird because you're
not seeing the people's faces. So but to my immediate right, we got
the Foul Fantasy aficionado guy that we have on the show a lot. Mister
bad Brackets ready as well. Yeah, a game is so big. You
brought in somebody for each thirty hour chunk of this game. Yeah, exactly.
We had We had to talk about like every part of the game,
so I'd have every every person over the uh next to him. He reviewed
the game for The Outer Haven. Also a writer Shaiir Andrew Aggress I'm sorry
right below me here is also a writer for The Outer Haven. Siscott.
Hey, y'all, and then we have the first time on the on the
show, on the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. Did
the review for Rebirth for Roger Ebert, freelance writer Straordinaiir Josh Broadwell, thanks
for having me. I'm glad to be here. And also he was he
was on basically doing a preview of his thoughts when he was like one of
the few people that had the game along with Josh and and Andrew to talk
about it, review it all that. Hayes mads glad to have you on
again, writer for Inverse, and he did the review and it has its
own ending explained thing on on versus ball that you can go. Thanks for
having me again. And everybody's review is in the descript as well, so
you know, just in case you want to check out their work. They
all do tremendous work here. So we're we're going to talk about the game
here, we're gonna talk about the ending, We're going to talk about all
the stuff. We're not going to start there. So if you are watching
or listening, we are going to do some non spoiler things at first,
and then as it goes on, I'll give you the big spoiler warning.
If you want to get out, you have that that window to leave.
After that, you're also see we're already getting that, Yeah, exactly it
is. Now. So all right, guys, let's start with I guess
general thoughts looking at the game as a whole. You don't have to give
you like a mini review or whatever. But Randy, we've talked about it
a lot, but I kind of haven't really had you on to talk about
it really, Like when you're done playing this game, it's a big fall
Fantasy fan and all that stuff. Where is this for you? Like,
what did you feel when you were done with I'll tell you about three years
when I've finally fully done with all the other side stuff of the game.
No, it's fantastic. I think a lot of the reviews that I've read
or seen, I think they say it extremely well. I can't believe this
game actually exists. Like Remake was something that was spectacular a few years ago
where they took a small section of seven and they ballooned it out to a
thirty or forty hour game. And this took a larger section and just grew
everything out. The amount of times you go back and think of Foul Fantasy
seven like the original game, where it's like, oh, I remember this
part, and then you go back and play it and it's two screens.
That was it, but we remember it. These creators go, Okay,
we'll make it a big giant area now for it, and we'll expand things
out, and they expand on characters and just the amount of love that has
been put into this game has been absolutely phenomenal. And I know so Sean
and I have talked about a lot. The pacing of this game is just
perfect for somebody like me. They just had to know what happened at the
end because I didn't want it spoiled. So I just was like, I
can't not be on the internet for this long. I have to know.
I could speed run through the last few chapters and then go back and clean
up everything else. It wasn't locked for me at that point. But if
you want to do everything else, like a Maximilian dude of course did and
was like one hundred and thirty hours in before you finally finish this first game
through, you can you could do that too. There's just so much to
this game. It's just the simplest way to put it, a little bit
of everything for everyone. All the mini games are not going to hit for
everyone, but you don't have to do them. But there were so many
more that hit that didn't to me, and good luck to any other game
out there for Game of the Year. Yeah, they did set a tall
task for this one, and we already had big games come out before then,
too, so interesting to already look at this year. How crazy it
is, Hayes. I mean, you had it during the review period,
so I guess it's different. Like you're probably thinking so many moments you're like,
man, I can't wait till people see this and experience It's like now
that you're done with and now you've seen all of it, you know,
if people get to play the game, like, well, what is your
thought? And you know I've seen you already playing Dragons Domatu doing all that
stuff. Where does this sit for you? I guess I think, you
know, as I've had time to reflect on it, I still personally love
it as much as I did when I wrote that review. But I think
what's been most interesting for me is to see a lot of There's been so
many different interpretation of things that happen in this game, and people have so
many different thoughts and so many different opinions on it, And to me,
that's that's the kind of games that I love the most is when we have
this wide breadth of experiences that people have, and I think that speaks to
just how rich this game is in general. Even if whether the things it
does works for you or whether they don't, everyone has something to say about
it. I think that's that's fantastic. I love that a weeks later,
we're still having discussions about it, so that's kind of that's kind of my
favorite part. I still I have my feelings on the ending have only gotten
stronger as I've sat on it for weeks. I like it, and I
like it even more than I did when I played it, and I think
it's just going to be interesting to reflect on this while we wait for the
third game. Yeah, that's going to be interesting when we get to talk
about the third game, how long it will take and how long we got
to wait. But at least it gave us a lot to think about on
that front. Josh, same thing for you. What are you? What
were your thoughts on the game when you got done with it? Well,
there are a lot of them, but I think the dominant one was just
I was I was really impressed how they took what to me was like the
most barren stretch of Final Fantasy seven and turned it into something so thematically rich
that they deepened all the character relationships. They actually their personalities more in ways
that honestly, after remake, I didn't expect them to because I like remake,
but I think the characters really come into themselves more in Rebirth. That
was kind of That was the thing that really stuck out for me, because
honestly, I don't actually like the original Final Fantasy seven. I only played
it for the first time a couple of years ago. I like it especially,
and as the part that I liked the least was the part that Rebirth
covered, So I was kind of hesitant going into thinking should I actually you
know what am I going to think? So? But yeah, I was
surprised. I liked it a lot, a lot more than I expected,
and I think even with some of the areas that to me felt a little
stretched, I think it's probably one of the best interpretations of the game that
Square Nix has done ever since it came out, you know, all the
different takes on it, variations or whatever. Yeah, I think the best
thing that could have happened to it, and it's funny. I think I'm
the anti Josh here because I played Remake and I really liked it, and
then I played seven for the first time right after Remake came out, and
I loved it, and my favorite parts of the game were the mid Garzolmer
Or however they changed a little bit, the june On Parade, the Gold
Saucer, the Forgotten City, so pretty much every everything that this one covered.
So for me, I went in with really high expectations of Rebirth because
it's actually for me, and I talked to Josh a little bit about this
before. My favorite stretch of the game, interestingly, because I like a
good a good Ring quest like a good I'm a big fan of Fellowship of
the Ring, so I like that journey across the planet seeing different locales.
So to see Rebirth realize these places that I had such fond well, I
guess I'm such fun with the first time around. I feel like it really
met my expectations, if not surpassed them. Yeah, that's that's a little
bit how I fell too. It was just this was way better than I
thought it was coming in. I was I was a bit worried, just
because you know, when you start blowing something up. That's already one section
of a game that doesn't always turn out, especially with the way some A
lot of times remake felt like, Man, we're really stretching this here,
and they did a great job of not ever making you feel like that.
But I think we'll get into the like the big reasons why when we talk
about more of it, Scott, what did you think about reverse? So
when they had like interviews and stuff talking about like where it was supposed to
take place in original Final Fantasy seven, I was kind of worried for one
section, being that remake was like a forty hour experience that was based off
of like the first four hours of the game, and four hours is if
you did everything in Midguar, like you could speed run Midguard like an hour
and you could be get out of there. So they're taking like the next
like twenty ish hours after Midguar and turning that into like a sixty to eighty
hour experience. I was just like, oh no, yeah, but it's
all it's like everything that I didn't like about remakes, and like the Patty
and how things were like forced on. You're either done it better or completely
just erase completely. So I'm really enjoyed everything that Rebirth did for the Final
Fantasy like remake trilogy. I hope that the third game is, if not
as good, but as is better. I don't know if they can actually
top it, but if they do, I'll be very impressed. Yeah,
it's good they they set a big bar for themselves as far as like now,
we have a massive expectations for this third game. I'm sure that they
probably feel that too. If anybody watched that thing that they did with Umatsu
and Nomura celebrate talk about more about the music, but no Mora sounds like
he's exhausted. Yeah, so I can't imagine what he's gonna feel like for
the next three years, four years doing this thing, Josh. A lot
was made of the open world the way it is, right, A lot
of uvsaft stuff in here, and then you have side quests and other stuff,
Like you have a bunch of open worlds in Pomp Fantasy, but this
is kind of a different version of an open world they've ever done in the
other foun fantas against Like, what did you think going through this when you
didn't have people like it's easier for us, right, Randy Scott, that
we had guides, so when something got frustrating, Oh, I'll just watch
this YouTube video. You guys didn't have that. You Hayes and Andrew,
y'all didn't have that. Like, how did you feel going through this?
Did you feel any differently than that all the people do or do you feel
the same thing? So, man, this is this is annoying or not?
It fluctuated a lot. I started trying to do everything in the grasslands
and that it got a little overwhelming, and so I stopped. Then when
I got to judon it kind of I don't even know why. I guess
just because maybe the layout of the land was more interesting. But I started
doing everything again. And then I also stopped activating the towers so all the
icons would go away, because that to me, like I was actually annoyed
when there was like a thing of it was like it wasn't Google Intel,
but it might as well have been. But it pointed out where the first
Google house was or Google Store, and I was like, ah, man,
you know, that looks really cool. I would have loved to have
just stumbled on that, and yet here it was telling me, you know,
Google's ahead, and so yeah, after that point and I just tried
to find things on my own, didn't really pay much attention to the icons.
I enjoyed the open a little lot more. I'm ify on open worlds
anyways. I think that a lot too big for the sake of being big,
and I get bored easy. But I also think Rebirth does a really
good job adding emotional significance to a lot of what you're doing in the open
world, to where I think I think I remember I said this in my
review or not, but so if I'm repeating myself, I apologize. But
it's like you're kind of when you're finding these small versions of the life Spring
or whatever, it's almost like there's a little active version there, like you're
you're pioneering a way to live without Chindra again finally, you know, Like,
and I think it helps too that I know some people weren't, but
I think it helps that a lot of the people that you met in Midguar,
they're out in the world too, doing their own thing. So it's
like you're all just kind of learning how to live outside out from under all
that you know, this is how you this is how, this is the
future. So I think that helped me enjoy it a bit more. I
don't know if everyone else saw it like that, but yeah, it kind
of smoothed over some of the more tedious aspects of it. You know what,
you just opened like a whole Pandora's box. For me, I didn't
even think about it. I've had at all, But like, see,
that's what's cool about hearing other people's opinions on this. Hayes, Was it
the same for you or did you What did you think of that? Yeah,
definitely. I wrote a little bit of a piece about this. But
one of the things I really like about the open world in this game is
that each of the areas kind of have their own flavor, so to speak,
Like they're all at very visual distinct they all have different layouts to different
chocobo abilities, but also a lot of the side quests and the side activities
that you get kind of tie into how those areas stories expand, you know,
like in Cosmo Canyon you're you're fighting the Spirit of the Gee Warriors,
or in Gongaga you have to go pick mushrooms. So I think a lot
of that content is really kind of tailor made to help help flesh out how
these areas kind of tie into the larger world, and I think that's what
I really enjoyed, and it has that feeling of like, you know,
when I played RPGs in the nineties, as like every town you got to
was a big event, Like I give a new town to run around in
and I can explore and find all these side characters and that that game.
Rebirth has that same feeling for every time I got to a new town,
it felt special. You you have a favorite region of them, I think
in terms of like content and exploration, I'd probably say Homo Canyon, but
I like the music and the vibe of good. Yeah. I was just
gonna real quick. It's really interesting that you said that, because I've had
several people tell me that something similar, basically that it felt like the old
World maps and rpg is only that was actually, you know, there was
nothing there and the old ones at least there's cool stuff to do with Rebirth.
Yeah, that's yeah, I've heard that. That's an interesting take.
You have a favorite readion too, josh U. Honestly, yeah, I'd
have to go with june On. I mean, I like most of them,
but I really like the june On region, and I think like the
backstory about the Republican versus gen Or really made it more interesting. Andrew,
how was that for you? Not you had to like figure stuff out?
You know, you could talk to I guess Hayes and Josh as well.
But did you like this fool and all that for the the open world elements
and the different questions and things. Yeah? Yeah, I mean I think
kind of my big thing this is kind of like a big thing I reviewed
just across the board because I feel like Rebirth was the game that really respected
my time. And so I'm like, you know, pool much about remake
where you're kind of forced to do, Like you're forced to find these cats
if you want this extra stuff. I mean you're not, you know,
but it's like highly encouraged to this. I feel like you could really take
or leave it for any of the open world side content. And so for
me, like I did, I spent like ten hours in the grasslands,
and then when I moved on, I was like, Okay, I got
to get to end of this game. So I kind of just did a
little bit here and there and then went back after I finished it. And
so certain things like the Chocobo's I don't know if I needed to have to
tame a chocobo. Maybe I could have done without that, but I loved
how the side quest and this something I think Hazes talked about. The side
quest felt really integrals. There were moments where I would go, wait a
moment like in Gangaga, for example, I see Sisine and having played Crisis
Core, I go, oh, are we going to acknowledge the history there?
And the game in the main street doesn't really do that. And then
if you go back and do the proto Relics or do the side quest there,
you get a lot of Sisney's back story tying into the characters where they
are now. So that was really exciting. And then favorite region I might
it's it's tough. It's close between the Grasslands and June On. June On.
For me, I was like, this is what it looks like scaled
up Grasslands. I love. It's like that moment with Earth where she goes,
oh my gosh, we're in the open world, and that was my
feeling of seeing everything open up is really exciting. I actually I kind of
teared up a little bit in Calm just to see this tiny dinky town from
the original game have such a glow up really affected me. Oh yeah,
like you get that feeling of they figured out how to do towns and this
looks so beautiful, Like it's not this little small thing that you're going to
and then it's like five little houses or whatever. It's like, wow,
there's like this bridge you go over there, this water you can actually go
on the water. You can they literally you do anything in there, and
it was it's it's such a small part of the whole journey, but like
that lets you know, oh they are joking around, They're letting you do
stuff in here. It's you have freedom that you didn't have in the mid
guard section. Randy. It's funny because you know you and I I my
co host, also reviewed the game, but he got the code basically at
launch, so he was playing it like the rest of us. But it's
funny to hear Andrew say this game respects my time when the thing that he
constantly would tell me is this game does not respect your time. But you
know what I would say is that I think what he's getting at but he's
not saying it this way, is that they connected everything so well. And
I said this in my review of Everything is connected. Everything the world Intel
is connected to the Cyclist. Cyclist is connected to the main game. It
all is connected to the relationship system that proto weel gives stuff, gives you
more lore on things from other things in Final Fantasy seven, like it makes
you want to do all of these things, even if they're mundane. These
wars that you get for this stuff is so worth going out of your way
and even getting lost in Gongaga to do it. You know, Randy,
did you feel like that? I know you didn't. I know you just
decided I'm going to mainline the game or whatever. But when you did do
some of those those things, did you feel that too? Oh? Absolutely?
And I'm with Josh. It was a Junon really changed my view on
the way the open world was going to work for seven. The Grasslands was
just that really felt like a Ubisoft section where it was just a big open
area and everything was spread out and then you had to go. Everything was
like, all right, now it's on the other side of the Grasslands and
then this one will send you back. I'm like, oh, I don't
know if I want to do this. And then Junon was a lot more
concise and so much was involved with it, and then the stories really grow
out from there. And yes, I always always battle back when when Mark
would bring up the idea of Final Fantasy seven not respecting your time, And
in a way, like you said, I do understand where he's coming from,
because you do want to do all this stuff. Like I didn't like
the side quests and remake because they were chapter specific, and it's once you
got to a certain point, well you better get this stuff done if you
want to be able to experience it or you're done with reworth. I could
just do them whenever I'm still finishing up a couple of the side quests and
having a good time and it doesn't mess up any of your game. But
like you said, you want to do it. It's like I felt bad
skipping a lot of the stuff that I was doing, but I just really
had to know what was going on with seph Roth and what was going to
happen at the end of this game. He's like, all right, I
can get to it later. I could once I've kind of figured out how
the game was going to work. But Juneo on to me was just that
that opening moment of oh my god, there's so much stuff, and I
liked how Josh said he didn't go out and get the towers at that point,
just so he could kind of find it himself. I think there was
a moment in June on for me, and it was that realization that,
like, you go out and each of those different things that you're collecting or
you're finding have different elements that kind of lead you that way, whether it's
an awl or or did the live stream pushing you that way, or as
my family has has deemed them, the nut butts, the little chocobos that
get you to the chocobo benches and stuff. And it was in June on
when I'm like following one of the little nut butts around and then an owl
would fly and I'm like, all right, hold on, hold on,
I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go get this. It's like, yeah,
you just you just hang out here. And then on my way to that,
I would run into one of the fiends that you would have to fight
for one of the fiend challenges, and then it was like, I think
I did four things before finally going back just to pick up the pole for
the chocobo station. Because they were all so close together. I was like
I was like all right, now, it's not like the grasslands where everything's
so spread out. They find cool ways to do it, and like everyone
else has said, they connect it with stories. They connect it with the
conversations that they're having while you're doing all this stuff. It's not just go
to point A, go to point B, do your thing and you're done.
Like you're learning different pieces of lore if you would choose to do so,
and it just just adds so much fantastic elements to the storytelling. Scott,
did you have a favorite region? And I think that that you're talking
about junon the perfect like part of the main story that really showcases how they
tie in stuff is you could literally go and completely missed like three soldier sets
that you have to go find of the Sector seven soldiers, but you'll you'll
find so many cool little things depending on who you finding. You don't because
they just they tied all that stuff in. Like just seeing the soldiers,
was it like have a sandy of rufus shinra just there and they're taking pictures
of it and it's like this is so they don't have any of this technology
and the original file phase of seven, but they made this so modern by
by adding this stuff in here. Yeah, I really love that too.
I love to all like the life they give some of the NPCs. My
favorite region is probably the Coral region, So I kind of completely skipped like
everything in the Grasslands because I just wanted to get out of there to go
to where the story wanted me to progress. June on was when I started
actually doing a lot of the more open world stuff of getting the towers and
stuff. But it was Coral that I actually spent the time trying to do
as much as I could. But that was also because I wanted to do
my best to actually find that stupid Tonberry King. Yeah, but all over
the place trying to search for mister realize, Oh no, you have to
get all of these things before it'll tell you where he was located. Kind
of ideal, but it did let me appreciate a lot of what it was
doing with It's kind of just like it it's subtle world building as well as
it's subtle just exploration that as if you, like, you skipped all the
towers, which I did. I skipped a lot of the towers just because
it's like I can easily see the tower, so I don't need to actually
do anything there. The only one, like, the only place I struggled
to getting to towers was Gonngaga, And that's just because they have some weird
like mushrooms gott to hop on to get to specific ones. Yeah, that
place is like amazing. Really it's a good thing. The music is so
good. Oh yeah, man, I felt like I was in the Lion
King or something the whole time, like I hate this, but I want
to keep listening to the song something I'm gonna I had a spot and Gongaga
that was that same thing where I completely got lost. I'm like, how
do you how do you get up to the top of this hill? And
I spent thirty minutes. I went, oh it's underground. Never mind.
Yeah, I was so mad at myself. I'm like, I went by
this hole seven times trying how do I get up here? Where's the mushroom
that's gonna hop me up? No, no, just go down this hill.
So yeah, out of how many times I was trying to find one
of the towers and I literally went in. I went by that. I
had no idea until I looked at a guide and I was like, are
you kidding me? I went by the stupid tree five times and all I
had to do was turn like right here instead of right here, and I
would have gone on the damn tree trunk and gone in sirt like oh god,
that was the old thing I did realizes that you could like glide on
some of the tree like branches, and it's just like that was never like
told you you just had to figure it out. It's like, you know,
you could have done that thing that they added to the original seven,
where you could have had the little red thing that it tells me where there's
an entry, and you know that that would have helped a lot more yellow.
Yeah, they needed more more yellow. Uh. You know another thing
that that how they obviously do the whole world intel and everything is with mini
games, right and and we all know that seven had a ton of mini
games and everybody loved every single one of them. Uh, this one has
some interesting ones as well. Did you guys uh get stumped by some of
the mini games, like as you're like, I need to get through this
section, I need to keep going with the game, Hayes, where you're
like, why is this more difficult than I? I think the main story
does a good job of not making you play the mini games too much,
like you have to do like the introductory level of it. But if I
don't want to do the harder stuff, you can move on. But after
I beat it, before the embargo was up, I was like, I'm
gonna try and platinum it and I did some harder minis, so I was
like, you know what, never mind, I'm not gonna this like the
crunch off and the chocobo gliding and oh my god on those, but I
think they're fun if you're not trying to do like completions. Yeah, that
was that was my thoughts too. I had fun with most of them.
There was some of them where like Gears and Gammus, you can just go
go like I'm like, once you got faster, first do you get to
three and four? And I'm like, dagn why did you have to tie
this wedge stuff from remaking? Here almost at the phone where I don't want
to do this anymore? Or but I kept going and I finally beat it.
But Josh, did you did you have a favorite mini game or one
that like stumped you at all? I mean, I've always been terrible at
all the games in the Gold saucer, so that didn't really change in rebirth.
But yeah, I have no completion to drive, so I was happy
to do the introductory thing and keep going pretend like you know, it didn't
exist anymore. So, but no, I mean I think I think,
like Case said, though, if you're not if you're not trying to complete
them, it's it's kind of just quirky and whimsical and fun. I mean,
some of the the ones with the boxes were kind of unnecessary, but
yeah, I think just on the surface level, it kind of added a
sense of whimsy for me that hadn't really been present since the PlayStation one era
as a game as a series kind of shifted more towards more serious storytelling without
any kind of hard moments. Excuse me. So yeah, so because I
didn't really try very hard, I didn't have any of the stumping. So
that's a short version of that. Well, I mean, Andrew, at
least, uh, you know, did you did you try the Chicken mini
game while you were doing the review? No? I think, yeah,
I think I came back to that one, and yes, I did a
lot of the early side quests and side content, But I am similar to
Randy and that at a certain point, I was like, I'm just gunning
for the ending. Yeah, uh, Scott, are you are you doing
a lot of stuff or are you kind of did you? Are you going
back to that later? Or I might go back to some of them.
I can tell you one. I will never go back to those. A
three D brawler. After I got like the third one done and they realized,
oh, there's like three more and they're all much much harder, I
was like, no, get past the freaking moogle. I don't know the
final side quest of the game where you helped the Shinra middle manager, would
you fight him in three D Brawlers. That's the most frustrating thing I've done
in a game since like fighting steps damn at that level. That's the only
side quest I haven't finished. The middle Manager will stay a middle Manager,
I don't care. The only like, the only like mini game that I
would go out of my way to do the completion run for just because I
thought it was such a fun and engaging one was The Shadow Blood Queen or
the Queen Blood. Yeah, that one was just so much fun, learning
like them putting more into a card game that also surrounds the final Fantasy seven.
Myth thoughs was just kind of the most yuki Oh level sense of having
a card game in a game. The ending was was it just straight up
an episode of pretty much the whole thing was an episode of It's like we're
we're definitely doing the Pegasus like dark world thing in here, and like,
my god, it was. But it was so that's what kept me going
through that entire thing. It was like it got to the point where I
get to a town and be like, where's the Queensland people? Because and
kick some queens Blood? Here's the story? Yeah, yeah, yeah story
whatever? Where is the queens Blood Challengers? I think one of my favorite
moments of the game is honestly when you figure out there is a story to
queens Blood because you play it for a few hours and like this is fun,
and then you do one one match and all of a sudden it's like
what is going on? Yeah? Yeah at all? So you guys that
were you know, like you're you're thinking about, Okay, what am I
going to write about aside from the game or whatever? Did you really have
the same thought that Queen's Blood was going to be the the thing they're talking
about? If they make any DLC for rebirth, it's going to be queens
Blood related. I thought queens Blood would be big. Yet part of that
is because I, you know, I reviewed with your three when that came
out, seeing how Gwent blew up as like I got the same exact vibe
from Splunders, like people are gonna love this, Josh, do you think
this could actually be its own game or or do you worry about it like
maybe getting like Gwent where people are excited about it at first and then it
kind of just goes away. Or I could see it being its own game.
It's a bit more approachable. Like I actually never understood Gwinn, which
I probably shouldn't say out loud, but I have no idea how to play
it. The tutorial, I was like, okay, I finished the tutorial,
you know, in the actual three finished the tutorial, just then got
obliterated in a match and really know what I was doing. So I think
if there's anyone else out there like me, it's Queen's Blood is a lot
more approachable for sure. I think it's a really good balance of strategy and
just sort of being able to have fun with it, like you could.
Do you think really deeply about the kind of dec your building, or you
could do like I did it most of it and just kind of wing it
and hope for the best and then keep restarting like five times until you finally
win. So yeah, I could. I could definitely see that it's a
really good mix of stuff there for people who, like I said, you
don't want to want to strategize and stuff, people just want to have fun.
I could definitely say it being its own game, I would play it.
I think what I also appreciate about Queen's Blood in that all the players
were just whack as hell. Yes, like they all had their own stupid
story like the one in Nibelheim where the dude is just blatantly not going to
work because he wants to play Queen's Blood and I was like, this is
how I feel right now too, I don't want to go. I loved
the little girl with the puppet and like, yeah, it's like trash talking
and the girls like an innocent six year old girl. That's very funny.
I also like how there's a weird little robot with a cowboy hat and yeah,
you see him, and they don't explain it for like twenty hours.
What the hell he's even doing there. He's like the champion of like you
have to fight him like twice or whatever. And then the second time as
you get the one of the craziest parts of the story of the Queen's Blood,
which like, man, they Randie, I don't know how far you
got into the the Queen's Blood stuff, but I'm right at the end of
it, okay, but it is. It's such a fun game, Like
obviously, it reminds me a lot of Triple Triad where it really kind of
took over as far as being that side game that really hooked on. And
the one thing I do worry about if they try to make it a full
game is the one thing that really hurt Triple Tryad is as as Fan Fantasy
eight got further and further on, they kept adding all these different elements that
to me just ruined Triple Triad. It went away from its simplicity, and
all the weird board rules and stuff that they would add in to just mix
things up just made the game less fun and we get a lot more frustrating.
And I never got to that point with with Queen's Blood, like they
added new elements and stuff but it really added to the strategy. It never
felt cheap, it never felt like it was forced upon you. It was
just different ways to build decks. And that's what I worry about is then
they'll come out with new board rules or whatever. And I'm shocked. When
I first saw that the Queen's Blood and saw some of the cards, I
went, all right, they're going to start you off easy with the the
three lane board, but with some of the cards, obviously this is going
to go to a five lane board. And then as I started to learn
the game, I'm so glad they never did. Is that game would have
taken forever. But that's what I worry about is that maybe they go,
all right, we got to make this as a full thing, but how
do we do it? Then they maybe it just kind of loses this luster
that Triple Triad does, or like they were saying it with Gwinn. The
other thing that surprised me is like when you get to the Gold Saucer or
Coast of Del Soul, you see like the challenges. I remember seeing those
the first time, like this looks awful. I don't ever want to do
these. And then when I was trying to get the Platinum. I went
back and did them, and I found out I had a ton of fun
with those, like specialized challenges where you have to do specific moves or do
specific cards like exceptionally well done. They they clearly put so much thought into
how to make that mini game kind of evolve over time. Yeah, but
did those challenges have to be so judgy every time you put a card down?
Oh I don't know about that one. Fine, I'm sorry. I'll
start Oh you did the wrong thing there, Oh okay, and then somehow
you figure it out and be like, wow, I can't believe you did
that. Basically that whenever I figured out, I always turned into it.
Man, I'm an idiot. That's some thing. I really liked. The
commentator of the tournament, and one are the moments that made me go whoa
was when you're dueling Earth and Queen's Blood and the commentator is like, is
this gonna be Earth's funeral? Find out at the end of this game?
And I was like, whoa commentary. Yeah, it's actually funny because I
had no idea. I mean, I was fine because I love playing Queensland,
but it's like funny, I didn't realize that you can actually forfeit the
whole tournament, and then the same thing still happens. Yeah, like and
then what did you got? I think when to me, this is one
of the best moments of the entire game, and that's why I think I
loved. One of the reason why I love chapter five so much is that
moment where you think it's over and then Red comes out of nowhere. It's
what the hell happening here? I honestly laughed, It's it's a list of
the moon walk, Like, what's going on? They moments. They had
those moments in remake where you're like, there's no way that they're going to
do this at all, Like obviously this was just it was a part of
its time back in the nineties, and no way remake is gonna touch it.
The same thing was with the Rebirds, Like there's no way they're gonna
put Red thirteen in a sailor suit or in the shinersuit and he's gonna walk
around like you did, or dance around and whatever. And then you get
like you said, you get through that entire thing, it's like, yeah,
they didn't do it, and then no, never mind, it is
not only did they do it. They went way over the top with it,
Like every moment that was just a small sect. That's what I love
about this game. There are so many things that were just a sprite that
moved weird. Oh nope, it has its own backstory and it's his own
scene and it's own we We're going to take it way over the top with
it. It's again. It just shows the amount of love that yeah,
like they literally thought of almost anything to just but and I love how much
like cloud cloud personality comes out a lot during that form and too, he
just at the end, he's just like, oh you want to go?
Then he just flicks the cardim and everything it's like okay, or where's this
cloud being the entire time? Yeah ahead. I think this game is really
good at one thing that often gets overlooked about Final Fantasy in general, of
how good it can be at kind of absurd ast humor. I have a
piece coming out in the next lock On volume about Final Fantasy Vive and how
that game like really embraces the kind of like an absurdist genre. And I
think that Rebirth just nails that. You know, it knows it's completely self
aware about what it's doing. And it it at every opportunity they take the
chance to to go crazy with him. I think that that plays to his
strength. Oh for sure. I think I talked about an I review too
of like, for me, what makes this game and other people have talked
about it, so I don't want to like claim that obviously, but how
the connecting this stuff goes through the characters the most. What makes this game
to me is the characters and how much you feel like they're actually friends throughout
this entire thing. And you know, another one of my favorite things for
chapter five is like, and it's literally it's funny because I had just got
done reading the Traces of Two Pass book or whatever, and you get to
chapter five and they literally do that scene from the book there where Eric is
talking to Tifa like and then shots coming. We'll talk about this later and
they're both getting out of the the Ghener recuts or whatever, and I'm just
like, man, I know it's the same guy that wrote everything, but
it's still like it's that level of care, that level of seeing how you
know they became friends just and a lot of it's off screen, but you
can realistically, we haven't seen them interact this entire time all that much,
but you can literally, you can really believe that that scene is actually happening,
and they're really feeling that way from just how you journey with these characters,
and I think it goes into how they like, Really, I feel
like everybody gets paid off in a way in this game, but how they
introduced some of the how they introduce the new characters to me and make them
pay off, I think matters a lot. What did you guys think of
how they I guess one character that we don't he's by himself most of the
time, but he starts off the game Zach, and then he kind of
has these little short interludes throughout the game until you know, we get to
the part of the end. Did you guys feel like they did Zach justice
or did you want more Zach in there? What did you think? Josh,
That's a good question. Excuse me. I think I expected more Zach
at the start, especially because he does kick the game off. But I
think I think it works having these just these limited moments of him and you
know, kind of teases of something else going on with the whole metaverse thing,
and I think it was nice seeing him act competently for a change because
he was. It was a good foiled cloud, you know, it was
most of crisis story. He's just you know, Goo ding dong. Yeah,
so it was I think the moments that he was there, it was
really good character growth moments for him. Yeah, I think it probably could
have. I think more Zach moments might have kind of cheapened the effect they
were going for, because it would have just made it too much like oh,
worlds colliding, you know, whereas yeah, leaving it to your imagination
and making guess more makes the final payoff better. Anyways, Hayes, what
do you think was there enough Zach? Yeah? I pretty much agree.
I think using Zach sparingly was probably the smarter move. He is a fan
favorite character, but I think in this game he's really used effectively as kind
of a thematic tool to dig into like that theme this game has of you
know, taking control of your own fate essentially, which has kind of been
the theme of the whole trilogy so far, one of the overarching themes.
I think he plays into that really nicely, of you know, creating a
sense of mystery of like we see these events happening largely the same way that
they are were in the original game, but he's bringing in that extra element
where it's like there's a difference, there's there's little tweaks, there's little differences.
I just thought his story was used effectively in this, and I especially
appreciate that all of his segments don't have combat in them except for the beginning
and the end. Yeah, it's an interesting kind of look at having a
character that there are probably a lot lot of people that wanted him to do
more, Like I can kind of understand the folks that wanted, oh why
am I just walking with Zach? You know, like what this feels like
I'm just doing remake again and I didn't want that, But I feel like
it pays off in the end when you have those moments at the end,
And I feel like some there's some folks that obviously you get to play with
her, so it's different in that way you get to use her in combat
all the time. But I've seen a lot of people being like, oh,
man, youth, he's just this comic relief. She's one note.
You know, you don't get a lot with her. Uh, Scott,
did you feel like that or do you feel like they really made Ufi into
a much better character in this game. I think they made Ufi into a
much much better character, especially because in the original she's just like the optional
character. My very first play through A seven, I never got her.
I didn't realize she was a thing. I didn't know that she wasn't thinking
util I played Keingdom Hearts one for the first time, saw that, looked
at it inside She's from She's from Final Fantasy seven. Where how When I
went back to Final Fantasy seven looked up the guide, I'm like, how
did I miss this? Yeah? But then you realize that she doesn't even
have a lot of lines in seven. When you bring her with stuff as
a party member to stuff, she just kind of exists. And then you
have actual, like like optional stuff that is also optional that happens, like
when you get to like the Wutai stuff in seven. That's when Ufi gets
a few moments at least, But most of her moments is just stealing from
you and then running away. So I do like that they gave her a
lot more of a personality and more of like a reason of why she's interested
in this gang where they even started that interest coming from intermission where we got
to have integrate DLC that happened. That gave us a lot more engagement of
how Ufi got interested into Avalanche and why that's such interesting to her, which
was a great thing to add and give you fee a reason of being here
than just oh they found her randomly. Did you like the way she was
introduced? I thought that was a different way to do this CPR mini game.
Yes, uh yeah, what did you think ander of how they I
guess how they use Zach and Ufi in this game. Yeah. With with
Zach, I mean my big thing we'll we'll probably get to this more later,
is I feel like there's still a big payoff in part three with Zach
that they're building two. I feel like he's gonna have a big hero moment
in three. It's just my prediction in part three. So I felt like
this was a nice way of introducing a little bit more of him than at
the very end of a remake and just kind of teasing out, Okay,
we have a little bit more Zach, and I feel like there's still a
building to something. But I liked the amount that we had of him in
Rebirth And then for you Fi's because like a lot of people in the original
game didn't really like her. And the next character I know Hayes has has
strong feelings about is Kate Sith. And it was like Uphie and Kate Sith
people did not like. And I mentioned my review that those were two of
my favorite characters. I felt like the performers did an amazing job at voicing
them, making them, making you care about them, making them sympathetic but
also really funny and endearing. Yeah, that was thank you Andrew for giving
me the wonderful segue. That was gonna be my next point of Kate Sith
Man. I feel like if anyone was absolutely hated in that game by virtually
everyone was Kate Sith And then whoa, they actually got a Scottish actor to
do his voice. He has amazing, hilarious lines. He's actually competent in
combat in this game. And what do you know, I think we all
end up loving Kate Sith. You know, Randy did, Like I kind
of felt sad when you had that moment of you know, he's going to
leave your party because I liked him so much. Yeah, I thought I
did a really good job. But with Kate, with a lot of people
from the original. It was never in my party even I think in Rebirth
he was one of the later choices, but even on the on the sections
that you had to play as he had his own individual feel to him in
the combat and as far as his character, when I thought they really did
a good job of getting a little deeper with with Kate Siths himself and it
kind of as knowing where that character goes and and the backstory and the stuff
that they haven't revealed yet. I really think that they kind of hint added
a lot more with Rebirth. It just kind of sow those seeds a bit
that for those that have played the original go oh yeah, that that I
know exactly what's going on here and you get those great stuff. I thought
they they killed it with Ufi. I was I was a lot like everyone
else where. Again, she was never really part of my main party when
I would play the original, and and they made her so overpowered as far
as the combat goes and character was fantastic. That that young innocence where you
can tell she's the youngest of the party and she has at least life experience
and this kind of stuff. You saw that with with integrate. I thought
they did a good job and just her reactions to different moments were fantastic.
She probably has the moment I laughed at the most where she first introduced herself
to the group, did her whole big intro, and Cloud just went cool
walked off. I lost it. That was probably my favorite part of that
entire game. So, yeah, what they've been able to do with with
those characters that didn't get a lot of like character building in the original and
now they're some of my favorite characters Ufi, especially because now she's part of
my main crew, Like it's it's Tifa, Cloud and Ufi. If I'm
doing anything where I'm really needing to buckle down and beat somebody, those are
the three I go with. Now, well, I got to hear what
your thing is with Kate Sith. Yeah. Yeah, to me, he's
the one that's gotten kind of the most improvement because I think the original game
kind of the big fly with him is he has that betrayal moment and that's
big, and then you know, everyone accepts him back, and then he
doesn't really do anything else the rest of the entire game. He just kind
of stands there, and I think the way his dynamic works with the other
characters is incredible, and he's kind of the apex point of my favorite part
about this game, where you really get a sense of how these characters play
off of each other, because I realized playing this that the original game you
don't see a lot of the relationships between the other party members. You see
a lot of how Cloud's relationship with these characters grows. You know, you
see Cloud's moment with Barrett, Cloud's moment with Vincent, Kloud's moment with Sid.
But in Rebirth, it's really about how these relationships are across the board.
So it's the little moments that I love, Like in a cut scene
where you see you Fee like fake punch Barrett and he pretends like he's hurt,
and you know, it's just these little interactions that are spread across the
entire game that really show you the unique relationships, not just how people relate
to Cloud, but how they all relate to each other. Yeah. There,
it's a reaction to hearing Nanarchy's voice change is amazing. I'm like,
wow, you would have thought that that was your buddy telling you that you
know that you've known for years or whatever, Like you would not expect that
just a video game care to do that. It is so off the wall.
One more thing about Kate Sith is I love how they kept the betrayal,
but they changed the reasoning that it's not because he's doing it for Shinro,
but because he really cares about the characters and doesn't want them to continue
on to the dangerous temple. And having that of like, oh, that's
the reason, really really like nailed it for me. That they they've connected
him with the party in a really caring way. And I also do think
that they kind of cleaned up a plot hole from the original game once you
kind of learn where Kate Sith comes from and all that, we talk about
the relationships between all the other characters not related with Cloud. We just have
to also bring up the side characters. The Rude Bar scene where he goes
into a bald only bar and sings a song. We missed that too,
which is what I absolutely need. Rude in my party now my favorite non
playable character in this series. He had some amazing moments in in remake,
and then he just gets topped even more with what he does in Read.
It's so good. That scene is so great obviously for us Keith and Harts
fans. Getting to see Elena eating Sea Salt ice cream was you know,
but Stora comes through one of these damn portals in the third game. I
quit. I'm not going to do it. I'm not doing it. Can
you imagine that would mean? Man? Elena to me was actually so well
well done in this game too, Like she got so much personality in this
game that I wasn't acting at all, Like maybe we maybe we fight them
one too many times or whatever during this thing, But yeah, I loved
her too. I you know, it's Reno's just getting to sleep the whole
time, so of course, you know. And then you know, we
also had Sid and Vincent who were you know, we don't get to play
with them, but we get to see them a lot more than we did,
you know, Red in the first game. What did y'all think about?
Sid has been changed a lot from the character that he was in the
original, and then Vincent I feel like has been changed. He's he's more
himself. But I feel like if anybody has some amazing lines in this game,
is Vincent, Like of all the people, like the dude is supposed
to be super serious he has, like some of the funny lines like what
okay, yeah, I was gonna say. I mean, Vincent has really
changed because of Advent Children and some of the more character that they try to
give him, and that one maybe just ago just don't remember Duri Servers just
he's really cool in Advent Children. Guys. It's okay. I'm very curious
where they go with Sid because he is not the straight up assholes that he
was when you first meet him happy and the fact that we have not gone
to his hometown to see him be an asshole to his wife. Are they
going to change the Spaceship storyline, Is it going to go different, is
it going to react differently to it? I'm curious what they're going to do
with that because the Sid that we have seen so far in Rebirth is not
going to act in the same way that he does in the original at all
during during that section of the game. So very curious what they do with
Yeah. There's a really interesting detail too, when you learn that Sid new
Eric's mother Yeah and seemingly had a thing for her too, which really is
it positions him as in an interesting like fop their figure kind of area for
Eiris, and I think that's fascinating, and especially because Sid is presumably going
to be one of the most important characters in the next game, because there's
that whole section in the original where he becomes party leader for Yeah, did
you like the way they introduced him, Josh, He's he's the guy you
need to be able to go to the next place you need to go to.
It's not just you know, the way he's introduced them. Yeah,
I think I'd like Rebirth Sid a lot. I think I like him in
general. He's a more interesting character. I kind of hope they do dig
into some of that. I mean, I totally understand what they wouldn't because
it's, you know, obviously a problematic and it wasn't really explored a lot
in the original. I think they could do some really interesting things if they
do kind of present his darker side and the resentment and the pins up frustration
and kind of work through that as a resolution. I think that could be
a really good compliment to Cloud Store if they If they do it, I'm
fine if they don't, because you know, Rebirth Cit is basically a new
character with his own interesting kind of stuff going on. But yeah, I
do hope that kind of makes an appearance like that. I just raised some
pretty interesting story points that kind of go along with what's gonna happen to the
Cloud presumably gonna happen in the Cloud and part three I do. The one
thing change they need to make with it is he needs to smoke. I'm
sorry, he has a whole limit break where he'd likes to stick a dynamite
with his cigarette, like exactly, Yeah, yeah, I wonder how they're
going to play that off. Are they going to do that more of like,
oh, that's part of his backstory and then he explains why he doesn't
smoke anymore or something like That's it's very They definitely have to use that in
some way because I don't think they can ignore it if they're orre they just
going to act like that never existed. It's it's just weird with as much
as the stuff that they brought in from Evan originally, I want to s
see if they actually use that or not. Yeah, I mean they do
a great job with all these characters. Uh, it's it's I think we
could go on and talk about them a lot, but that that also brings
a lot of them forward into things we mentioned with combat, Right, they
added some things to the combat that kind of helps prove some of that as
well. Right with the synergy skills and synergy abilities where you have to use
your other characters and you have tag team moves and things like that. Did
you have somebody? I think you guys have kind of mentioned it already,
like youf he's become a huge part of the party. Did you Did you
like the changes in combat and how do you think? Do you see how
they could add anything else to the combat for part three? Because man,
what they did with with what they added here, I feel like just took
everything from remake one and answered all the questions. Heyes, what do you
think? Yeah, I've actually talked to some people about this before. I
like the synergy abilities a lot. I really think they add a lot to
combat and make it feel more dynamic and make it feel like the team members
are working together better. The big thing I think they could add to the
next game is being able to swap out party members during battle. I think
having that ability or integrating the party members that are in battle in some better
way like in Rebirth. You know, there's when your parties down you can
do like the backline commands, So something like that but more more usable at
any time I think would be better. Obviously, you know, Vincent and
Sid are probably going to play drastically different from anyone else we but I could
also see, you know, it would be a huge change, but I
could see them bumping it up to four party members at a time or something,
and I think that would even just adding one more party member would integraly
change how this combat system works. So I think there are a lot of
like changes they could make that would really make that third game be different.
I mean, did you like the changes in the combat and what do you
think about maybe adding something like maybe like a Marvelus cacoum assists type thing to
put them in there more if they don't if they don't do what you're saying,
hey is which I think that seems like the most logical step, right,
but maybe they don't want to do that where you're getting too too much,
like moving them around too much, but maybe an assist type thing.
What do you think, Josh, of all the changes? I think it's
just silly because I wrote a guide on it, but I always forget if
it's synergy skills are the ones you can use any time or sitergy abilities.
But ok, I was gonna say, pretend I know what I'm talking about
and just go with it. The ones that you can use at anytime,
those are fantastic because filling up the ATV gauge in the original is such a
nightmare. I mean, God, I hate that. So yeah, being
able to use that to fill up their ATV gauge and use their skills more
often would used to build up towards the stronger skills. I think that was
probably the best thing un for combat, so that actually made it a lot
more enjoyable for I would I would love to see a fourth party member,
like he said, because the thing I like the least about the change from
the Pixel games to the PlayStation one era games was that you dropped down to
just three party members. As far as other ways to improve it, maybe
an option to kind of have them use their own skills as they as you
know, I guess, like a persona kind of type system where you you
set a general sort of command for the or even as well, I guess,
which just kind of give them behaviors to follow. And there's you know,
aeroth little wildfire, someone would actually heal you and or would cast an
elemental spell or something thing like that, instead of having to stop and choose
to skill yourself. Yeah, I think that's the only way I could probably
see to improve it. So part of that was also that they added the
folios wherever you had to get s fee, which also connects to why you
want to do the guy the side quests and all the other stuff because you
get those books and uh, I forgot you know, we talked about it,
but you know, of course that was also the brain of everybody's assistance
to have to do the mob reques. Also because they gave you, uh
the sp books. Do you like the way they tied in the folio stuff,
Scott? And and is there anything else you changed the combat? So
I feel like the folio thing was the one I used probably the least of
all the new additions they added to the game I did. I basically would
get the teamwork abilities, and that was basically most mostly what I'd be focused
on getting because the teamwork abilities are really cool. And I always of course
had to have the Earth and Barrett one where they had the sunglasses before they
did their big finales. But I do appreciate that one thing in the folio
system is giving you the small magical elements that you didn't require U two's MP
four, so I could actually focus on MP on the stronger, the strongest
moves I want, or if I want to just have one person be like
a buffer or not. So I did like having that as an option they
added in the folio system. But I also kind of always hated trying to
find all the folio stuff because I was like, oh, do I have
n FSPs like I five off? Dang it. Yeah. At least they'll
let you kind of do your own. You could go back and take it
off something else and if you needed that five or whatever, letting your respect
was it was good to h Andrew. What did you think of I guess
what they they put in the combat and the folios. Yeah, as others
said, I loved the synergy skills and abilities, the ones Scot's talking about
Sweet and Sour Salvo. It's like I did so many times. I'm like,
no, I know the name of that one that was my favorite one
with the matching sunglasses and as a small and this is another this is like
another easter egg of like they didn't have to do this but it's great that
if you change their costumes, they'll have different sunglasses they put on, which
is just a level of detail that like few people will appreciate. But when
someone pointed out, I was like, Wow, that's commitment. Yeah.
I liked the folios the one thing about them that and I don't know,
maybe I just haven't maybe one hundred and twenty seven hours in, I haven't
played enough, but I feel like the limit breaks were really high up there.
It took me a while to get the second level, and I think
I like almost when I stopped, I got the third level. So that's
something I'd be curious if in the third if they make limit breaks a little
bit more accessible in terms of which ones you can use. I know that
using the synergy skills and abilities, you can level up your limit break.
I only did that to the second round. I've never gotten it to the
third limit breaks. That I'd be curious. Maybe there's an easier way of
doing it that I haven't gotten to, but I'd be curious if that be
something that comment would say, Okay, which limit break do you want to
start with? Yeah, that was kind of the only thing with the full
It was that I was a little bit like, huh, but everything else.
I like, Randy, did you have a favorite synergy ability type?
Mo? No, I just I was one of those players that I mean,
you watch it the first time, that's great, but I was.
I would hit a synergy skill and then switched to the one person that wasn't
on it and wasn't even watching them. I did appreciate that too. You
didn't have to sit there and watch it. I'm just gonna just continue to
have a ridiculous movement going on on the screen. I rarely touched the folios.
I know Scott had brought that up. It was like every time you
got to a save butt and they're like, hey, do you want to
check your folios? I go, I think I've gained one. I don't.
It's gonna take me another twenty twenty hours to be able to upgrade anything.
So I just it just kept throwing it into your face and you never
really needed to use it. The one issue that I really had with combat,
and it wasn't a big thing. It was just something because I'm not
great at games apparently, but the block button being the same button as the
synergy skills really messed with any timing that I had because it felt like it
would give you that little hiccup of time pause to bring up that menu,
and if you messed up, I'm just trying to block. I'm not trying
to do the skill right now, and then I get all messed up,
and then it would I would just get really mad about it. So I
just had screwed blocking apparently, and I just roll around the screen like an
idiot and hope I had dodged everything because I just got so annoyed by it.
But then you get into like the rufous fights where like blocking and pairing
is so important. It's like I'm tired of seeing the synergy skills. So
I got a little annoyed by those. And again it was just timing wise.
It just my inability to block at the correct times that was very much
on display when everything paused and go, nope, you were wrong. I
do appreciate how much Bearrett loves his sailor suit. Yes, you know,
he really like went after it with that thing. He's like, you know
what, I think I'll just wear this one. You know what's uh what?
It took me a while to figure out the synergy skills, but man,
what'd you figure those things out. It's like, like Hayes said,
like that will really break the game for you, of like you want ATV
fast, just use those things and immediate like UFI is amazing. Once you
use the the boom or anything where she sends it off and it comes back
or whatever. Her ATV's full completely, It's like, wow, they really
they really found a way for you to just make this work so well you
can do what you want with it. They gave you a lot more freedom,
uh, And I appreciated that from the comment perspective, and also just
that even the synergy abilities aren't like they have they have separate things. The
syneri abilities aren't like limits. You can get knocked off using this syndrome that
had somebody die in the middle of one. I was like, wait a
minute, she didn't even start doing the It was funny just to watch it.
Oh she died, okay, whatever, But it made you like respect
the limit break that that's the only thing that still has immunity with which is
a cool little function. Really quick before we get into I guess like the
the spoiler stuff and just a couple of other new introductions. Was there anybody
that was like a side character for remake that you were like, Wow,
I'm actually happy to see this person's story continue or whatever. Like for me
seeing the whole Johnny side quest just oh he splits in like a million Johnnies
and then at the end he's like like, uh, well, we helped
you a lot, so it's up to you now. I also love that
that Johnny. How am I gonna show people I'm the real Johnny Well all
my clothes, I'm just gonna put a leaf in their hair that Will was
a partner, will surely never go wrong. Hayes, did you have anybody
that my my goofy answers this the Shinra middle Manager, because I just love
that the doofiest corporate guy in the world is kind of like realizing how troublesome
his fascist employer actually is. But I also really like Kirier. I think
she's a lot of fun, and I really like the book that she comes
from. The kids are all right, and her like continued relevance gives me
hope that we're going to see the main character of that book game, which
is his name is Yeah, because he's a surprisingly important character that could play
an interesting role considering he's you know, related to Rufus, So he's Rufus
Shinra's long lost brother basically, And I think that would be really interesting to
introduce that dynamic, especially because Rufus has become far more important than ever.
Oh yeah, if there's anybody that by the end of the game you didn't
realize how important he is, they pretty much. Uh, and we'll get
to that for sure. Any Andrew, did you have somebody that you're like,
all right, I didn't, it's about to see this person, but
hereious, Yeah, I mean one is I liked, mean, I guess
this is a side character also from the original. But I liked how they
went back to Jesse, Biggs and Wedge in the Proto Relic Quest And you
can totally miss it, but if you do it, it'll explain, you
know, everything that happened to them. And of course we do get a
little bit more of Bigs in this one. And but in terms of Ritrue
Ones, I really like the cameos of the Wall Market folks on the Shinra
ship in the Card Tournament, So I like that they put those in as
little like fun little people who kind of say, oh, like remember us,
and then they added a chocobo Sam to the chocobo side quest, so
I really liked how they sprinkled them in throughout the side quest if you want
to kind of like hop them down and find them. Josh was their particular
one for you, not one that was a surprise. I think after Curious
showed up the first time, I expected most of the name like named slash
important characters from me make to turn up in some capacity, and I think
I would have to copy Hayes there and say she was probably my favorite,
but for less interesting reasons. I just kind of like how she was a
bit of a monster and got away with it and everyone was just like,
what the heck, but they had to do it anyways, So you know,
well, donder her. You gotta respect that they made that a whole
arc or Clouds like another place where he showed a lot of personalities like stop
calling yourself a MRK. Yeah, that was a good bit of little little
characterization that you know, actual cloud kind of shone through when K has a
moment of self awareness and it's like, is this what you think of me?
Brandy? Did you have one? Or everyone was kind of a hit.
I will just reiterate I love the fact that basically Midguard got so screwed
up with every thing that that happened that all the Walmart went, We're just
gonna move on a group vacation, yeah, and we just all just kind
of ran into them as they went along their little vacation. It was great.
A sad one is you run into Leslie in the chapter twelve quests with
with Tifa in that Battlerena Underground and you go through that whole thing thinking that
you're gonna find his girlfriend or whatever this time and still still nothing. I
feel bad for this. It's felt bad for the guy that's definitely coming He's
definitely coming back. Yeah, Scott as you have one at all. So
I was actually really happy to see more Andrea show up and so we can
see you have like do that with the whole like the piano stuff with Tifa
and Cloud making sure that they have another person that can help them with their
piano and they're all their musical stuff going on. I do like like they
entered like they had these side characters that kind of offered you the side quest
to actually help them and also then establish more of what they could actually do
and be helpful far so he didn't have to learn more about the side character.
But I do appreciate the fact that they let you learn more about the
side characters if you wanted to. I guess I had forgot about that.
That kind of fits here, Roche getting more of a deeper instead of just
being the goofy antagonist, him actually playing a major part in some of the
way the story plays out later on. I thought was really cool because I
think all of us when Roche showed up in the first one, I was
like, what the hell is this? I mean, he's over the top
character, but it's like, Okay, I expect to see him in the
second one, but why And you see him again in the second one,
all right, this is the same thing. And then I do like from
then on he kind of goes in this path that was like, all right,
he has depth now, and it's really really good. So I'm glad
that he wasn't just a comic relief enemy that you can fight throughout the game.
I'm very glad they didn't tone him down either. It becomes quite clear
that his obsession with Cloud is more than just because he wants to fight him,
Like, there's a little more there. Yeah. Oh, at that
moment in June where he shows up and like the whole jazz band starts playing
and then they're like, uh, well, we're not really his fans,
we're just doing another part with Roastip. It was just a sneaky, hilarious
moment. Is when you when you get done with that fight at June on
and you're leaving and the group of soldiers that you were fighting with that you've
tricked into where you were not the trader or whatever, and they're like,
so back there, yeah he's a dick. No not that are you the
trader or not? What is happened? I just love Cloud's response to that.
Yeah, he said that whole session with the uh, the soldiers was
great. Like by the end, I was like, you know what,
couldn't could they become like an extra party? Can't we just yeah, basically
yeah, I look how there's a side quest where you can return to them,
and they're just like, yeah, we still need your help. We
kind of know that you don't work for us by now it doesn't matter,
yea. Even the commanders like, oh we know, but we need you
to figure this out, you know. And something that they showed really early
that I don't think we expected was the weapons. They got their moment in
chapter eight, chapter nine, and then along with them we got a second
class. I know everybody wasn't a big fan of these the Whispers, We
got a second Firson. Now we have White Whispers. What do you guys
think of, like how they did the weapons and I guess we could talk
about the whole chapter nine thing to how they like. That whole moment was
just awesome, Like it's one of the few times we've ever seen Separo look
human in a way where man, he's he's having a hard time there,
Like, what did you guys think of how they introduced the weapons and anything?
Hayes, Yeah, I I really like this aspect. Actually, I
think it was a really smart way of transforming an element from remake into something
different because now basically, like you know, the Whispers were the arbiters of
fate before, but now that fate has been changed, they've essentially become manifestations
of people's will. So you know, like the blackpers our Sepharro's will and
the White Whispers are essentially the will of the planet. And in that recent
documentary, one thing no Jima mentions is that they wanted to make the planet
itself seem like more of a character. So I think that's why you get
the weapons earlier and why you're seeing the whispers, because you're starting to see
more that the planet is fighting back against sephroth Will and his plan and how
Earth ties into that struggle as well as risking. So I generally pretty positive
about I'm interested with the weapons to see if we still get all the weapons
from the original, like I Ultimate Weapon and so fire weapons seem pretty sure
that it, but I'm curious to see if we're going to get Emerald and
Ruby. Josh, what did you think about how they showed off the weapons
here? I actually thought it was pretty exciting because I have this kind of
whole theory about how the moment that lasts for like maybe two minutes in the
original Final Fantasy vin where the weapons you know, attacked Midguar and everything just
kind of goes hell in the past. I think that's gonna be a whole
huge plot point, and seeing the weapons show up earlier it rebirthed was well
one of the things that actually sparked that theory for me. But I think
kind of, like Hayes said, it's It was a sign that they're taking
a lot of the things that were either left unsaid or maybe they just didn't
have time to develop further from the original game, like making the planet more
of an accent in the story instead of just oh, here's the live stream.
It doesn't matter until the very end. Well now it does. So
yeah, I think that whole thing was really well done, and it made
me really excited for part three. Well, I mean they they found a
way to you know, tie the story actually into this, which was like
one of the probably biggest changes from you know, the original is having this
whole section with Tifa and Cloud and even step Rockets involved and everything. Andrew
like, what did you think when you saw this, Like is this where
you finally go, Okay, we're finally getting something here. This is a
this is getting different. So the moment in chapter nine, Yeah, yeah,
that was the thing I, like people have said, I thought it
was a nice way to blend the original with the remake because in the original,
like you didn't see the weapons that much. They brought them in early.
Then they also tied the whispers to the weapons, and I feel like
we didn't quite get a payoff with that, But I'm excited to see how
the weapons, the idea of the planet, and the life stream tie in
seemingly directly to the idea of fate and the different timelines and things. So
again, I think we'll find out in part three, but I like that
they set up more of a correlation of the changes they're making with the original
lore Scott, what'd you think about the I really loved everything that they had
to do with the weapons. I love the life stream having its own manifestation.
Plus it adds even more to the whole like section that helps us see
more about the live stream and like Cosmo Canyon helps us understand a lot more
of just the planet having its own will. And I love that the weapons
themselves on display just looks so good too. So we just have so much
more to do with the weapons now, and it does make me interesting to
see where this is going to go and how it's going to relate even further
into the bigger overarching plot. Yeah, and they found a way to kind
of put Shinner in here as well, of like they're kind of facing after
them, and then you be be with the wonderful line when she sees the
weapons, like Oh, there's a huge materia there, good luck of the
stuff with and all that exactly what everyone else has been saying. I think
they did a great job of teasing them. I think as somebody that watches
Maximilian talk about File Fantasy seven for the last several years and trying to break
all this stuff down, I've kind of gotten in the same boat as him.
Where the third game is going to be giant Kaiju battles. Do they
go as crazy as fall fasty sixteen? Probably not as far as those battles
go, but just the over the top miss of those battles, So just
getting a sneak peak of the weapons. So I really don't think these are
the final forms of the weapons, because the two that we saw look very
generic and fish like, and going back to the original ones, obviously they
were very polygony, but they were all different and they all had their own
abilities. So whether these as I've heard in other podcas cassa where they're just
like scouts for the planet to see what's going on and then they awake the
giant ones or these morph into things we will see, but it's just again
where you can kind of tell that they know what they're going to do with
these, and they're set up for the third game, so they're going to
tease it now and really build out to it, and it works far better
than the tease of Kate Sith in the first game. They just roll out
there when the Stector's falling, so everything at yeah, but then they do
such a better job with going hey, like big things are coming with a
third and I like that there's now two different kinds of whispers. Like you
said, it feels like Separata is controlling one the planet is controlling the other
end, or Earth is controlling the others, depending on which way they want
to go with it. So they continue to try to have the battle over
Fate happen, and I think that's really once we get into the story of
this is a main arching plot point is battling Fate. Like you thought you
beat Fate in the first one, but there's obviously many points in report that
goes not Fate's you can't beat Fate. And then I think Zethroth is going,
no, well, I can control Fate. I mean, let me
try to control Fate, and they're just they're doing some interesting things. And
what I really love about this section of the game was it was one of
the very few where they went the way over the top stuff of differing from
the original game, but they at least sprinkled it here and there instead of
just all right, we're in the last thirty minutes. Here we go.
Yeah. No, they did a great job also like showing one of the
big times that spar Off controlled Cloud. Yeah, right of just oh okay,
this isn't you know he's he's really got him warped now, you know,
he even you know, slash teeth into the live stream and all that
stuff could have possibly caused her to die himself, Like you know, can
you imagine how that would have screwed him up if that happened. And then
just like what that has to do to the whole Like that's when the party
has to start thinking about how crazy is this guy? You know, like
like I loved all of that, and then also the stuff later in the
chapter where you get everybody's I love that whole thing of chapter nine of the
guys get strained there, then the girls have to come and like save them.
Maybe that fight with Scarlett took a little bit too long, but a
lot of that Chapter nine was great because it was in an area that was
It's crazy that this was an era that was literally you could completely pass it
in the original. It's literally there just so you could meet Zach's parents.
And they added all of this into it and then added Cisney in there.
What a cool moment that was too of just buying Cisne into it. Like
you said, Andrew, they don't really mention the whole Okay, she knows
people, but then if you do the thing with the Proto relic later to
with the Turks, you know she comes in. So that whole chapter was
done really well. I thought, yeah, minus the chicken. Yeah,
if you're not going to complete the game and you're not going for the platinum,
that's a side question. The moment they say chicken run or realize that
you don't have to wait for the chicken to go all the way back to
the starting spot. You can literally just throw the thing back as soon as
it's walking back and it won't be that big a problem. That was my
problem. I kept waiting for it to go all the way back, and
I was like, dude, I keep running into the camera, I keep
running into bear, I keep running into air, like and then where I
was supposed to bring the chickens because I keep I kept forgetting where that was
at, Like when they had to go all the way down and to the
left, like, Okay, where do these guys need to go again?
Did everybody else have that moment when you go all the way out to like
the freaking way past the beginning of the towel and you go, no way,
am I making it all the way from year all the way to the
town again? Yeah? Uh? Talk about adding stuff just really quick,
because I think this ties into it as well, because you know, the
whole game has this relationship system now that they added as well, and talk
about over the top and adding stuff to gold saucers. They somehow took all
the dreams I think we had of that when in the original and just decided
this is going to be like an actual Disney World themed dark thing. And
then the moment you see Dio and it's like COVID is just happening here because
he's flexing every ten seconds. You guys, that whole opening number with Andrea,
like that whole thing is just ah. That was great. I think
Dio is my favorite character that they have brought over from the original game that
we have not we did not see in remake, just because he was over
the top in the original. And again it was exactly the same as as
Walmart, Like, there's no way that Crenado is going to be this wild
in this new game, and they're like, no, no, it's gonna
be way worse, and that's do o. It's like it's just the way
he flexes on everything, or like he's having the most normal conversation but making
it so over dramatic and doing the muscle stuff and you're just like, oh
my god, that part was so great. And again, it's the small
things that they do in this game that just shows that they know exactly what
they're doing, especially for people that are big fans of the original game,
by just going, oh, you're walking around the Gold Sauce and you're checking
out all this stuff, and oh, there's a big wall poster up coming
soon snowboarding, because everyone knows it's gonna be and I guarantee anyone that played
the original game, where as a fan of Fall Fantasy seven saw that poster
and marked out, yeah, every single one. One of my other favorite
details in the Gold Saucers when you see the stage play Loveless and they it's
called Loveless G version, which is continuating. That's the version created by Genesis.
It's just like because everyone keeps wondering like if Genesis going to be back,
like are they going to bring Genesis back? And they just give the
little tiniest bit of hints. Yeah, yeah, very very small, but
they did that there did really quick. Who did everybody go on the date
with? Everybody? Say Tifa once here the actually somebody I wanted to go
on the day with Tifa, but it was Eric my first time because I
kept accidentally doing all her side quests. That was the problem with the thing
because I wish that they would have added the I get why, right,
they wanted to have a mystery to it, but like when you finish the
game, they actually give that whole explainer of exactly how close you are with
everybody, whereas they kind of leave it as a mystery, and so all
you see is like everybody turned dark blue, and I'm like, oh crap,
I gotta start doing something so I don't and I had during that thing
with Cosmo Canyon and she's doing the whole thing at the campfire, I have
to be a total dick with Cloud and I'm like, I feel so bad.
I'm so sorry. I gotta sit down. Yeah, you're getting too
close and I know what's coming. Yeah. My second favorite date though,
is the one where if you don't have affinity with any party members, the
vibes are just like going to the carnival with your two divorced dads and their
cat and the cat doesn't shut up either. Just also, I really appreciate
that you did have to really play it smart and invest Like I know Kyle
who writes for The Outer Haven, was really going for the date with Tifa
and got the date with Red thirteen because he just like wasn't doing enough side
quest or something. And I was like, you know, I'm so sorry
for you. But I like that it's not obvious who you're gonna get,
and if you do, like kind of muck something up along the way,
you can get someone totally unexpected. Yeah. That was nice to kind of
made it a bit more. I mean, it's nice to have that element
of surprise, like like you said, made it feel a bit more,
a bit more special. Even if it wasn't the one that you wanted to
do, this was still a unique scene that you weren't expecting and you know,
yeah, that was a nice touch. Yeah, definitely, that was
It was a cool moment. The one with Barrett's also really sweet too.
Yeah. This if you haven't done yet, it's it's really nice. Like
they're actually all really good to be honest, Like, I they could have
phoned some of these in because they know people are mostly gonna go on the
TIFA dat to day Earth Day, but they really added that dedication to all
of them that they all made them somewhat worth it. You know. I
think what's also really interesting about those dates is that they all in some way
relate to cloud and relationship. Yeah, every single one of them talks about
cloud and tea. Yeah. Well, and I mean there's this kind of
like Jesus is kind of the only one that's actually romantic. Yeah yeah,
so yeah, they did like the only person he kisses on a date is
Tifas. They did kind of like solidify that. And also just one of
the things I liked how each date gives you a little bit of lore,
Like I haven't watched the Red thirteen one or gotten that one, but apparently
they talk about like Red their teen having like vestiges of the memories of needing
to protect raths. That's kind of cool. They were like, Oh,
it ties into like him trying to remember those those like foreshadowing moments. He's
like half a second away from wagging his tail at the start, and it
is the most adorable thing ever. Yeah, I just got arths and I
went back to do the one with your two dads and their cat? Uh
the did you just? Did anybody have an issue with the way they did
the Barrett and Dine stuff as like how they did that from going to the
Saucer too? I kind of I did wish that they would have left it
a little bit more ominous. I think they gave it away a little bit
too much. But other than that, I liked it. I kind of
understood why they didn't do the whole thing from the original where they have him,
you know, dive off the Did anybody have an issue with how they
had him die in this game or or the fight or anything? I think
it. I think that's one of the rare cases where it loses a little
bit of the weight that the original game had. I still like it overall,
but I think the way it was depicted in the original game is aesthetically
and like tonally more dire because you kind of in the original game you kind
of get the sense that Dine never really forgave Barrett. But in this there's
very much an intention of like, yeah, he's out of his mind,
but he kind of forgives you. And I kind of liked in the original
where like there was not wasn't really a resolution that Barrett that kind of closure.
Yeah, Barrett just had to move on because his friend was gone.
Now he just had to find a way to deal with it. Yeah,
it would have gave a little bit more way to that moment that like one
of the cool moments that Cloud has in the game of like I got you
bro. That being said, yeah, that that scene does have one of
my favorite lines of the game where Cloud, after it all happens, Cloud
is like, we're here to help. Yeah, Like, I'm here to
help if you need it, And I really like when Barrett goes I'm starting
to think you actually mean. I think that is such a perfect moment that
shows how their relationship has on a sider part of that, I hated the
boss by just as much as I hated it. It was my least favorite
boss fight. It's just boring, just shooting back and forth. But no,
I totally agree. Like at first, I was really into what the
changes they were where you see dying like just talking to Maryland and his wife
and acting like they were there, and you're like, oh god, he's
just completely lost it and he's way over the top. But I agree,
it does kind of lose its weight more and more as it goes, especially
when you get the general involvement as well, and and things kind of change
the way it was. It was not as much one on one as we
got in the original, and I do think it takes a little bit away
from it. Yeah, and then of course you have a deal and rude
squaring off afterwards with the tests of strength going on there and what was it
adding the thing with Palmer. It's kind of like, why do we have
to have this fight right now? But it's just it goes through the whole
goofiness of this game. They do not let you sit very much with anything
before they just start adding something silly. See. The Palmer stuff had me
at first also curious if they were going to change everything around with Sid and
his hometown, but he doesn't get hit by a truck, so we still
have that moment to look forward to. One thing I did think was I
did kind of actually appreciate in Rebirth with the whole dying thing. I mean,
I think the bit afterwards was kind of kind of ruined it. But
the fact that there is that kind of closure between him and Barrett, but
Dyne still doesn't want to see Marlene. He still can't bring himself to do
that. I think that actually makes it a bit more tragic because it doesn't
end on this kind of like one note sort of oh, we's see you
know, the bad guy I can't forgive that's it kind of makes it a
bit better for Barrett because obviously Barrett's a better choice. You know, Barrett's
gonna be a good dad. I think the deal with Dine it's sadder for
him. For Dyne obviously be predeemed, I guess, but he still can't
bring himself to his daughter, And it gives Barrett's role as parent a bit
more because it's not now now it's not that he's the obvious choice. It's
that he yeah, exactly, there could have been other options, and now
he's got this responsibility to make sure that he doesn't let let her down anymore,
you know, if that makes sense. I kind of thoughts sort of
chilled off there, but yeah, so, but I think that kind of
plays into more of the emphasis on his doubts as a parent that they kind
of started with the earlier side quests. So I think I'm the only person
I know who actually liked it for that reason. But yeah, I actually
did like the change. Is there any other like aside from We're gonna about
to get to the to the ending here? Is there any other changes like
that you really liked or didn't like that they really did in the from the
original? Uh? I will say I love the fact that the guy that
runs the prison has a name now and he has the most amazing music when
he comes out, like the name in it. I think he had a
name in the original, but he was only in like one scene so you
don't remember it. But now he's Guss and he voiced by Troy Baker.
All yeah, or Baker really does everything? Uh yeah, But I'm not
the only one that the moment you started talking, I'm like, God,
damn it, Troy, You're not allowed to ship a video game out unless
you have Troy Baker in it somewhere. But all right, let's let's get
into the actual chapter. Well, I guess let's do chapter thirteen because I
think that has a lot of stuff that goes into the end as well.
So did everybody think that chapter thirteen last too long? At least the agents
or just me? For me, I think that was the one section It
was that and uh, this the Genra House with Kate Sith they added when
I was like, oh, I actually like the original better, and so
I like how in the original con Fantasy seven the Temple of the Ancients is
like this very kind of adventure movie Indiana Jones. Uh, you know,
death Trap inspired place, And in this one, it was cool the idea
of like manipulating things, but it did feel like the gimmick went on for
too long. It's that that that situation where that you have to do everything
twice because you get split up into the two groups, and instead of just
all right, I'm going to do a little bit here and then a little
bit with this group, it's oh, let's go back. I love how
it says several hours. I go, I've been playing for twenty minutes most
it. I mean this this segment is several hours how long it feels like
you even the game kind of understands. So I like the eras part where
you're trying to collect all the little soul bits and stuff like that part that's
sick forever and and I totally get I I felt the same way where it
felt like it took so long, but it really I think hits home because
it's it's you. You just got to the point where it's like, all
right, once you leave here, you can't you can't go back to you
get you beat the game and you can do your chapter select stuff. So
here you go. You're like, all right, I'm right at the end,
so I'm gonna sit down, I'm gonna beat this game. And then
six hours later you're like, it's the Temple of Atrian's ever gonna finish?
What is happening here? Like I think if it was at any different part,
I think that the length of it was still far too long, But
it was because it was like that, all right, you're in the home
stretch. Kind of understand how they had to kind of jerry rig like a
random part of the original game to make it this this final moment. So
that was kind of the tough thing of taking a like an arbitrary section making
it this big finale, and it just sucks so much because the end of
the Temple of the Asians is so good. Yeah, you have every character
go on their individual little question, the little story bit. It is fantastic.
This the the cef FROs stuff at the end is one of my favorite
parts of the entire game. But it was like, for me, it
was almost two o'clock in the morning because I was dead, said I'm beating
this game now, and then going let's come on. So because I wasn't
expecting Temple of Atrians just to last that long. What did you think is?
Did it last too long for you too? Or I do Yeah,
I think the section as a whole was a little too long. My favorite
part of the entire game is that section near the end where everyone gets their
own like trial, because I think it's a remarkable moment of really kind of
showing what unites all of these characters in the same way is that they're all
kind of survivors of trauma in one way or another, and so we get
to see them all kind of confront their trauma in some way, and they
come out of it and realize, oh shit, everyone else just did the
same thing. And I think that's a fascinating moment where that really creates like
a really strong bond between Josh. What did you think going through that?
Well, I definitely agree with Hayes and that that was you and your piece
about Erith's story in particular kind of tied in with that as well. But
anyways, I have a strong dislike for all of the Birth's dungeons, like
even the Ableheim Reactor from the prologue. I can't stand it. So yeah,
that was kind of just like it magnified everything that was that was mainly
his favorite part of the game, bland and stretched, but I think the
ending Redeen. But yeah, as far as in general, Scott, So
this is a fun story for that entire section because I got it. I
finally got there late at night, and that was during the time when I
was like, don'torry, I just I just need to finish this part that
I can get to the actual finale. That's when I'll say, and then
we'll get off the game. I didn't get off the game until four in
the morning. I went to bed like three hours before that. I was
like, okay, I think I was. Also, I think was like
four or five am as well. Yeah, I will get to the finale
digg it. Yeah, yeah, I mean it does. That was definitely,
I think, way too long. I do really enjoy all what we
got to see from the trauma of all the characters. I honestly didn't think
they would actually have I guess the balls to show Red thirteen's actual getting captured
by Hojo and the experimentation that it took on him, and yeah, god,
actually see for the first time like ever. So that was that was.
Oh god, I almost cry at that thing I did walking around.
God damn it just like screw off kid, like flattened. Yeah, exactly.
That I read like, I felt sad reading it, and then I'm
going through the game and I'm like, oh, this is the book part
and then oh my god, this is so sad. Randy, you and
I have both having daughters. It's like, yeah, it's brutal. Oh
you know. Then, I mean, obviously they could not do it because
of the way the story is built and what they had to follow. It
would have made absolutely no sense. But I would have loved to see what
they would have done for Kate Sith again with with with the character that we
know he is actually controlled by obviously do they reveal that at that point?
Who knows? But obviously Kate sa is not part of your party during this,
so they didn't have to worry about it. But it's just something I
thought about afterwards, like what would it? What would his It's just the
same clip of remake of him going like, no, I imagine him would
have been tied to the collapse of the Yeah, because he about that.
I mean they did tease him, like you saw it at one point where
he's in the where he's doing the fake cloud and Tifa and Barrett Poster and
you see that behind it that great and saw comes and he's like, don't
have too much fun now, Like that was good. I think that's an
interesting wrinkle too, because the original, you know, you presume that no
one knows who's controlling Kate Seth, but in this it's abundantly clear that Schindra
knows exactly who Kate. Yeah, I didn't. Did anybody have an like
I had a big issue with like the I wasn't a big fan of the
whole chasing Kate Sith around the Saucer like, Yeah, it felt very unnecessary,
like they just had prolonged that for some reason. Did anybody else wish
that was a cut scene? Yeah? That took too long. That was
another spot that took too long, especially when when you did finding me and
you felt really dumb. He's just in the middle of nowhere, and how
I walked around this place three times. It's like you have to you have
to trigger in a certain way so that the scene will play, and it's
like, yeah, oh God, trigger the scene. Then you have to
like go around to go back to where you initially think you'd have to go.
It sucked. So yeah, Like for me, I think that the
whole thing with not only the characters, but also I don't know what any
I don't know what that noise is. Oh well, there they're pigeons.
I'm in New York and it could be I was like, is that how
how loud are they? Yeah? New York? Yeah, where my brain
went sounded like a printer. Yeah. Also, the moments with Cloud the
Temple of the Agents are freaking nuts, like where he's just murdering Sindra soldiers
and then everybody goes to that trial and he's just like, can y'all hurry
up already? Yeah? Like what it opens your heart and has this great
speech, All right, let's go. I think it's open the door,
dang it. I think it's interesting because because this story split into multiple parts,
you know, like we don't get the resolution of Cloud's identity crisis,
right, like we just see his identity crisis and what that could mean going
forward. But unlike the original game, you know, you don't find out
what's going on with him. So I do wonder for you know, so
much of these new games are tied to knowledge of the areams, but anyone
that plays these as their first games, I do wonder what people think is
going on. Why do people like Cloud? He's such a jerk. Yeah,
like Cloud, it's like no reactions, you know. Yeah, It's
just there was so much good stuff in there. It's just it was tied
into like one too many battles. I did love the the two battles from
the original with the Dragon and the the demon Gate. Those are really well
that I die at the Dragon like three times until I figured it out.
I have to what you have to do to get it to stop, making
the lava go all the way to the end of the freaking block, like,
how do I not die here? So we get past the temple,
you know, we get to this whole section with Earth and going on a
dream date with Cloud, this whole thing with her giving him the material at
the end and pushing him into another room, waking up in the City of
the Ancients, talking to her as well for like one last time all that.
What did y'all think of this, this whole part here with how they
did this, how they're leading into that big moment, Hayes, what do
you think? So? I think from I've seen a lot of a lot
of varying on the ending, and I think from an initial reading, I
can understand why people. But I the more I've sat with it, the
more I really like the way they did this ending on kind of a meta
tech and especially that date, because I think that date to me functions as
kind of a chance for Erith to try and erase the guilt that Cloud feel
because presumably if she knows her fate and knows what happens, you know,
Cloud carries that guilt with him all through the original game, even into Advent
Children. I mean, that is a defining factor of his character in Advent
Children as the guilt he feels over not being able to save her. And
so I think a big emphasis here is Earth realizing that she can't change her
fate it has to be the same, but what she can change is how
the people around her are affected by her choice. And simultaneously, that date
section also functions as a way for Earth to realize that Cloud isn't Zach.
Cloud is Cloud his own person, because that date is step first step and
almost an exact recreation of Earth and Zach's first date, And it's her kind
of realizing that, you know, she still she loves Zach and she loves
Cloud in a different way, but not the same way. So I think
it's a really fascinating kind of introspective way of setting up that ending that there's
just so many different layers up. Yeah, I think that that really gets
emphasized by the whole here. Take this. This is about saving the world
and saving you. You know, just don't want I still want to find
a way to save you, which she's does that several times throughout the both
games, where she wants Cloud to find himself. Yeah, you know he's
not able to that being said as much as I love Rebirth, I think
we're in a really interesting position right now because I think the general reception and
kind of quality of the trilogy as a whole is going to heavily rely on
what they do with the third game. Yeah, and while I'm hopeful that
they're going to do it right, I think there is a case where the
third game kind of retroactively makes Rebirth worse. I think that's a very real
possibility. Yeah, for sure. I mean, you have to stick to
landing with everything that you've been building up for these two games, especially with
what they built throughout this entire game of Rebirth. And I'm with you if
the third game just stinks and goes way over the top of some of the
stuff and none of it lands and none of the stuff that they're trying to
build and making us question for these well, four years will be probably about
seven eight nine years by the time we get to the resolution, and then
we feel like, well that the whole thing sucked and the whole thing fell
apart. But I really liked that the Earth Date scene. I thought there
was a lot of little Easter eggs in it, with the different stamp,
which was the first of mini that we're getting ready to be thrown in your
face. But that was the kind of the first time you're like, oh
wait, there's a third one. Oh okay, So now we're in a
whole different because we all kind of figured out what the second one was at
the end of the remake and were on the same page. We're on the
same page where we're here, and then you're throwing this wrinkle at me,
and now now there's a fourth one over here, and now watch his bucket
from the beach is just running by with the fifth one, and like they
just had a lot of fun with it. But I thought Hayes nailed it
as far as like the different contact that they were trying to hit with that
date and just ariis trying to answer her own questions and give relief to Cloud,
and I thought that the scene was was really well done, especially with
her waking up going it's just a dream, don't worry about it. Just
yeah, we're just we're just here. Don't worry about the crazy stuff that's
actually happening to us at the moment. But Josh, what did you think
of I guess before getting to like the actual ending stuff, this is kind
of like Air saying by yeah, I mean, I don't really have a
lot to add already say, I mean, it's kind of captured it perfectly.
I think I think it was a natural way to build on everything they've
done since remake as far as deepening everyone, deepening the relationships, you know,
giving Air more of a personality, because in the original she's well and
even kind of in remake to an extent, she's kind of just just you
know, quacky, go lucky. Oh, she's not gonna let anything get
her down. And then there's a lot more depth to her that comes out
at various points. Again, the oh ord to forget exactly when it was
was after the beach fight, when she's saying how she's afraid of the darkness
inside her y. I think that. I think the dream scene and the
date, I think that was a really pivotal moment for her as far as
coming with her own fate, because I think a lot of it, a
lot of the emphasis is on as players, what's going to happen to Earth,
and then Rebirth has Earth saying Okay, this is what's going to happen
to me, and this is how I'm gonna handle it. I'm going to
deal with it. So she's kind of addressing the problems that she raised in
that beach scene. You know, the darkness inside her, all the uncertainty,
all the problems and everything that aren't weighing her down. This is her
answer to that. This is the choice that she's making, and in a
very earth way, she's thinking of other people. You know. It's she's
not gonna just do that. That's gonna make lies for her, even if
life doesn't go on for her. So yeah, I think it was an
excellent scene, and they're like, like you said, and like Randy said,
there's a lot to unttack there. So I loved it, honestly.
A moving beyond that obviously to Cloud wakes up walking to the city of the
Vcients. You get that whole entrance part with the whispers again and then basically
they all weirdly that Vince is the last one that has to come in too,
like let him through, and then you get that whole area there,
and then we get that ending where you don't know you do you don't what
happened? Did she die? Did she not die? Did Cloud stop?
It? Is it all in his brain? Scott, what did you think
when you got done. I had to go through a lot of thinking and
processing on things, but I do remember the first thing I did do was
write an entire like thesis to Andrew, like Okay, so this did this,
this, did this, this, this this, But like my my
first reading on everything before I want to look up like theory videos on stuff.
Was what we got to see, like in like the Zach areas,
where like the traverse town of the life stream where everything kind of enters in
all the weird uh anomalies are there that shouldn't be there kind of a deal.
And so when we got to see like the different timelines diverge and all
the all these different worlds that are created because Sephroth is screwing things up just
because he Sepharroth and has a big nine thousand IQ plan in mind of what's
he wants to do with the world. It's just interesting to see that the
life stream is using so many different ways and methods to try to correct what
Sephrot's trying to do. And one of them is this like timeless timeline kind
of traverse town area that can intersect with different worlds and has so many different
things going on that you have to like pay attention to so many little things
undertan that's what's going on, because it's like, well, time doesn't exist
here, clocks don't exist here. The entire memories are all over the place
because they're from different timelines of different events that happened. It's like Zach shouldn't
know this thing, Big shouldn't know this thing. And it's just like there's
so much going on that it just makes you so like I had to like
redo like different youth like views to see like, oh, this is what
happens in this section or this section and this section, because there's just so
much theories you can make with what we see. At the end of does
Cloud tries to save Erith? Does save Eareth somehow in one timeline, and
then then a doesn't in another, and you aren't sure what's going on since
and Cloud's the only one who can see both. Andrew, how much of
that thesis did you actually read? And yeah, well it's funny, it's
all it's all connected. Because when I finished it, I messaged both Hayes
and Josh to be like, wait, what what do you think happened?
And I got two completely different answers, and I was like, Okay,
that's good. I'm in a good company here, and yeah, I have
so many thoughts about the ending. I've played it three times. The first
time I just had no idea. The second time I was, like Scott
said, I was looking with a new perspective, paying attention to the rainbow
shimmers and like who passes through them? Who doesn't. So that's when I
went, Okay, I think we're getting a diverging timeline scenario where like she's
alive in one not alive in another. Then the third time I was like,
oh, they do. There is kind of a finale to it where
like it it seems like maybe she is just dead and they all kind of
converge into like the one where she's definitely dead. Since then, I've decided
it's like all of the above. I think it's just deliberately ambiguous and we'll
find out in the third one. I will say, in terms of like
things how I felt about it, there's kind of something I didn't like about
the ending, something I was mixed on, and something I really loved.
The one thing I didn't like about the ending is that it I felt like
I didn't have as much of an emotional response to it, only because I
was kind of confused. It tries to have its cake and eat it too,
So I feel like with the original, you know spoilers, you know,
everyone knows at the point, but like she you know, she dies
and I was like, oh, that's really quite sad, and this one
it was because they give the hint that maybe she's still alive and you're not
sure, it kind of undercut that sadness for me personally. Something I was
kind of mixed on is that you kind of find out in the third one,
like they are kind of saying, Okay, you have to play the
third one to like really know. It feels on one hand a little bit
like a marketing ploy, but on the other it does invest me in the
third one a lot for me to say, Okay, we'll get the answer
in the third one. But the thing that I really loved about the ending,
and it was kind of a little touched on a little bit with that
date scene is in the original, it felt a little bit kind of incidental
that Earth dies, like it's like, oh, it's it is sad.
But I think the developers even said they toyed with it being tifa with it
being Barrett and then settle on Earth, and I loved how in this one
it felt like it really was this huge mastermind battle between Cepharrof and Earth for
control of the planet, like we talked about with the whispers on sephrav side
those on Earth's side, and seeing how Earth says, okay, a version
of me in one timeline is going to hide a materia and then give it
to Cloud this one moment, like she's planning, like like you said,
like Cephrov has this mastermind plan, but Erth also seems to have one,
and that really excites me of the potential for in the third game, Like
these two mastermind plans of the planet and all its personification and Earth guiding it
going up against cephar off his whispers uh and his plan to take over all
of Fate really excited me. As as an addition, that wasn't did anybody
have like a thought when seth Ross starts explaining about all the worlds and everything
be like I don't want the MCU and fallow Fantasy seven or were you just
you expected at this point you were fine with that. I was fine with
it. So we started having this discussion and now all I have in my
thought is sora A popping out and we get that whole end game deal where
a bunch of portals pop out and like all the heroes of all the Final
Fantasy games and all the Kingdom Heart stuff all show up to take them off.
Now that I have that image in my head, I hate it.
But before that I don't mind, especially because they do such a good job
of teasing it, like, Okay, we have all these different timelines,
and we have all these different branching paths and all these different things that happen,
but they get closed, or at least most of them get closed.
And now I feel like part of what we'll get in the third game is
Zach trying to reopen one now that he has kind of been able to see
that there's a way to get back, and obviously by being able to fight
with Cloud even though they weren't really together but they were because of the weird
connection section that you were at in that Final Boss, will be an interesting
storyline to get in. I also, I brought it up earlier in this
but the whole idea of Fate and we thought we defeated Fate and remaking,
we thought, oh, everything's going to be completely different. And there's several
points throughout this game, especially with Earth and Zach, where they show it's
like, no, there's just there's certain points that are going to happen in
every timeline. You might have skirted it here, but like every choice that
Zach made, he ended up in front of an army or a whole lineage
of shinder shoulders ready to shoot him down, because that's how he ends.
We see right after Earth gives the white material to Cloud that seth Roth comes
through the door and he's there to hunt her down. He's going to kill
her, and every retimeline that's just how like fate is going to work.
And then the way I interpreted the ending and it has definitely changed, and
especially watching other spoiler cats and listen to other people talk about it. And
that's what I love about both of these games so far, because if you
go back to when Remake first came out and the reviews came out and they're
like, great, the game's great, but the ending I don't know about
that, and then over the years we all went Okay, I get it
now, like I get the ending, and we've all had these great discussions
and it's like, oh, it really made you think. Same thing happened
with Rebirth. The reviews came out and they're like, oh that ending though,
like the ending, I don't know if what people are going to think
about it, And already, as we've gotten a couple of weeks in,
more and more people, it's like it just brings these discussions in and that's
what I love about it. But to me, it's it's like did she
or did she not die? I think she died. I don't think that
was a sepher off changing of a fate or anything. We see it many
times where cloud sees something that's not real. We saw that with Nibelheim,
where I mean even with the demo, where he is seeing things he wasn't
supposed to do and then all of a sudden things shake and then his visions
back with him. I think he thought he saved her, but obviously he
doesn't. That's why the rest of the party member sees her dead. It's
why cephyro At at one point goes, you're never going to see the truth
with clouded Eyes, which is a play on his name, which made me
cringe a little bit. But it's one hundred percent true Cloud can't see the
truth and even like throws the blood of Earth at him, like, look,
I this is her blood, Like she's dead, but you can't see
that because you don't want to see it. Like I think they took the
whole idea of Cloud being so messed up at this part of the original game,
and after he gives off the Black Materia a little bit later in the
original where he goes completely off the deep End and they've like surrounded it even
more so now he's seeing Earth and he is seeing his own thing. And
I love listening to what was an Easy or Easy Allies spoiler cast yesterday with
Maximilian on there where they were talking about there's a theory out there already that
the Earth we have at the end of the game is sephyar off because she
has a red tint in her eyes and she's acting different than she did before,
and it's like, this is what I absolutely love about the stuff.
Final Fantasy seven was my favorite fan Fantasy seven of all time because it got
me into RPGs. It got me into this series. But what they've been
able to do with this and being able to break it up into three games
is throw so much wildness out there that is connected in such a fantastic way
that everyone went, well, that's not like the original sow it sucked.
But then we have these discussions and then more and more happens, and then
by the next game, you're like, I cannot wait to see how it
connects with the crazy ending they had. And in three years, when they
finally give us the first trailer for the next game, we're all gonna go,
oh, I know where it's going. I know, I got it
now, I have I figured out, And they got no, you don't,
no, not at all, and we're going to surprise you, and
you're going to hate it at first, and then then you'll understand what was
going on in her brains and it's all going to work out great. Yeah.
I think there's some really interesting ideas in the execution of the ending too,
And I want to shout out. Giovanni Colntonio on Digital Trends put out
a really fantastic piece on how he defended the ending. Had a lot of
the same thoughts I do. But you know, when they announced the remake,
the number one question was what happens there? Absolutely that's what everyone asked,
and so you know, it kind of created this Schrodinger's Cat kind of
situation of like, is she going to be alive or is she going to
be dead? And I think the very execution of the ending plays into that
idea, because I think they intentionally obfuscate what happens in that moment, because
it's even right up until the second it happens, they're trying to give you
hope that she might live. But then it ties into that whole theme they
have at the end of you know, fate and our lives. There are
certain things that we can control, but there are also certain things that we
can and I think there's a really profound message in Rebirth of like, you
know, you can't always control things that happen. You can't control who dies,
You can't control certain things, and I think that's why Big Bigs dies
as well. But you know, a lot of people say they brought him
back for nothing, but I think he also ties into that idea of you
know, that's something you just can't change. Bigs died and that's that's just
it. He can't escape that fate. And I think there's some interesting agency
given to Earth by letting her know what her fate is and choose how that
fate plays out. Yeah, well, it's gonna be interesting how they pieces
together and they it like I love the ending for the same reasons Randy did,
and that we all know we're going to have to wait. I know
people wanted to have unending right to this. You wanted to have that moment
that you had in the origin where you have the burial in the water and
all that and you have the Okay, it's never gonna hit the same way.
It doesn't matter what we try to tell ourselves. It's not going Unless
this is your first time, then okay maybe, but most people are coming
this having played the original. It's not going to hit the same way if
they do it the carbon coffee same way. Right, So we know we're
gonna wait at least three years. They got to give you something to discuss
in that time. They got to give you something to anticipate in that time,
and this is a great way to do it and play into that hole
man Cloud is really screwed up, like Cloud is, do it if they
have some kind of psychiatric thing in Nibelheim or Midguard wherever that he needs to
go to. They gotta have like the super duper version of that, because
you know, Likeatifa's gonna really have to have to pull something out of a
hat in the deal. Is that, like they had to make this bigger,
right, they had to make this. Now he has something else he
has to overcome because he thinks that she is actually alive. So how do
we go from this to what's going to happen in the third game? And
yeah, it's it's such an awesome thing for them to do with that.
I just want to say real quickly that I don't think Cloud thinks Earth is
alive. I think he knows that she's dead and he just accepts that she
has her own battle I am. You know, there's a lot I could
say. I have a whole theory about how Cloud traveling to the other world
has connected him to the life stream and now he kind of has this this
multiversal sense like Earth and Sapharrov have, But it basically boils down to I
personally don't think Cloud thinks Earth. It's also it's funny you both mention that
because I think that in that moment where like Tief has to go on the
life stream and resuscitate Cloud, I think and I could be wrong, but
I think that's where Earth and Zach are gonna reappear in this one, because
it's like it'll take a lot more than maybe like just titha Tifa. So
I think maybe we'll get with him being in the live stream, we'll get
that convergence of the life stream and like the real timeline of them being like
Okay, we need to help this guy move on, and like we need
we need everyone now, Yeah, we'll have the avage we'll see Yeah,
because there's literally laying the groundwork in this game of the live stream, not
just connecting the planet, but now there's like this universal life stream that runs
through all the multiverse, right, yeah, Like are we going to see
the black and white live stream and all that eventually? So like, well
we talked about it already, But moving to the party, the moment where
they see Eric did to the ending where they're repairing the ship. Earth has
her home own where she's sitting there talking to Cloud. Is she really there
or is she not? If you look close, she's only there when Cloud's
looking at her. The rest of the time, she's not, Uh,
you know, I know, Max and some other people brought up the whole
is she Genova thing, playing around with with Cloud even more, and then
they take off and that's the end, and you know, the whole unknown
journey will continue into the next game. We'll talk about the stuff with the
rufus in a little bit. But what did you did you did you did
it change anything those did you have a moment where Okay, I think I
know what's going on when you got the death scene and then when you saw
this you're like, oh, wait a minute, Cloud just put black material
and it's sword, and I have what the hell happened? Like Yes,
I think it is kind of perfectly executed to be as ambiguous as possible,
because it's like great, I think Brett, you say like, oh,
only Cloud can see her. She is dead. There's something like she puts
her hand on Red thirteen. He's like oh Eric, and you're like,
wait a moment someone else like did he just say that because he happened to
think of her? Or like did he feel that? Also at the very
end, one line I keep thinking about is when she says like, oh,
I have to go back and he's like, oh, like you know,
what's it like? She's like, Oh, it's like a second home
and Iverye. People say they think that it could be she's referring to the
life stream. She could be referring to another timeline. She could be referring
to the Forgotten City. It's not really clear, and so I think they
could have, you know, they could have easily been like, I got
to go back to the city. But I think the fact they never put
a proper noun there, they're really leaning into the ambiguity of that scene.
Yeah. I think they also nail it really well with leaving her there where
she has to go back and do this stuff, so then it's not just
Cloud leaning over to the right and talking to somebody that's not there for the
rest of the party. For most of the third game, she's just not
there. And I think that'll keep Cloud sounding sane until everything falls off the
rails, where he's like, yeah, we left there back at the Forgotten
Capitol, and everyone's like, oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely we did,
and we left her in a different state and you thought you left your
in or Hayes's idea is very interesting too, And again this is why I
absolutely love the way they did this. There's so many theories out there,
and being able to hear different ones. It's really really fun and hopefully they'll
be able to answer all of them in a fantastic way in the third game,
or they're going to go way off the rails and so is going to
show up, so we will find out. I mean they did with the
Go Gomesh stuff where he's another Final Fantasies. I've heard some wild theories there
as well, where they're trying to combine all of the Final Fantasies together and
please do not let's let's not go way over the top with this. But
no, I really thought that they nailed the ending, especially because you were
expecting something over the top with the way remake ended, where you're like,
all right, they're going to really set up a lot of stuff for us
to kind of mow over for these next couple of years, and they really
planted some interesting seeds that now we all get to have a lot of fun
discussions over the next couple year. I just felt bad for Tifa at the
end. Well, yeah, the most it's like that's your best friend that
now again you had somebody ripped away from you. She doesn't even say bye
to you at all, like she's you know, like why couldn't she have
talked to Tifa at the end there too, you know, that's tell her
to wake up? Okay, I do you think there's going to be some
kind of resolution there, because in the original game, when the live stream
comes out and stops media and you beat sepferr Off, there's a moment where
Cloud and Tifa are like kind of seeing the life stream, and there's a
line where Tifa's like I can sense her and Cloud gills go see her there.
Yeah, that's presumably them talking about you know, they know Eric is
there in the life stream. So I think there'll be some kind of resolution
between Tifa and again, or just even some kind of shared knowledge or something.
I wonder if she sees anything because of her being interacting with the live
stream already too. I think that's a very viable possibility too. Yeah.
Yeah, Like they show that flash where she kind of sees the whole where
Cloud has the whole hand on her face thing, and then they see the
flash of the blood too, and it's like, I wonder if she can
see both versions, and she just says that she's also confused and doesn't know
the livestream is kind of like the magic card to find since seven it can
yeah, pretty much do anything right. Then at the end after this they
do the whole stuff with Rufus and Glenn from Every Crisis shows up and he's
supposed to have already been dead, and then you find out that Zeparav and
Ceparov's messing with him too, and we find out the whole thing about Wutai
is a ruse to keep Rufus off of the actual goal of you know,
he's not supposed to be chasing Separov as well in their own way. So
basically we kind of already knew because of the way that they don't really talk
much about what yef He's going through, that I was probably going to play
a big part in part three. And also no Moro has already been on
record of saying, well, we're basically building an entire country, so get
ready for this thing to be big, you know, but how much do
you think we're Are we going to be basically fighting a war for half of
three or like what what do you think is going to be going on there?
And does it? Because I heard some people be like, man,
why did they even put this in here? I hate this this even exists
where were you on this kind of being like the last thing you kind of
see with this game. Do you want me to answer first? Yeah,
yeah, you know, I got you know, I got a lot of
thoughts about Rufus. I've been beating the drums since remake that Rufus is one
of the most important characters in this trilogy, and I'm absolutely sure of that
after Rebirth, because you see it suggested in that final scene that Rufus is
also Viceroy who's the it's the leader of Wu Tie, so he's kind of
orchestrating this war. But at the same time, there's hints throughout the game
that Rufus is somehow a little more aware of what's going on than most of
the other characters, and the there's a scene at the end of Rebirth where
it's clearly shown that Rufus can see the which makes him at that time the
only person outside of the main party that could see them. So I think
Rufus is going to be this like pivotal second half of the third game almost
I don't know if I want to say he's playable. The Turks will be
playable in some way, but I think to Josh's point, earlier where you
know they're kind of going to flesh out the weapons attacking Midguar. I think
it's Cloud and everyone is doing their stuff in Midgar. We're going to see
a secondary plot play out where Rufus is trying to like hold down the fort
in Midguar and trying to fend off the weapons. While also I think he's
the third one with a master plan. I think there's the sephar Rov Plan,
the Earth plan, and the Rufus. What I'm not sure of is
if the going to give him the arc that he has going into Advent Children
where he kind of has a redemption. I think we could see a redemption
moment for Rufus where he's he's the one who kind of like puts the nail
in the coffin of the weapons and does that in order to let Cloud and
the others fighteth for us. Those are my thoughts. I get It's interesting
because I feel like, because they said that the developers have said that it
will line up with Advent Children lead into it, and to me, you
know, I don't know how much they'll do redemption for Rufus in the third
one, but I felt like the scene where he meets with Avalanche and says,
oh, you know what, I'm not you know, we can work
out a deal here to me, felt like hinting at that eventual advent Children
Redemption just a little bit. Yeah, it definitely feels like Rufus is going
to play a huge part in that. And I mean they isn't his name
isn't voice versus a roof like Rufus backwards or whatever in Japanese. Also,
so that kind of gives uh that away, and he it's it's interesting that
they decided to do that. Like I wonder if Glenn is going to come
back and be like one of the remnants as well, Like are we gonna
is he gonna end up showing up again like the actual Glenn or is seen
controlling them this entire time. There's some big theories too that Glenn is Cloud's
father. Oh God, please don't, please, yeah, please don't.
We don't need a Darth Vader moment, I don't think. But so what
is like what do you guys are hoping you want to see for the third
game? Like is there a region that you're really hoping to get to see?
Do you think it's gonna be kind of like more like Rebirth, where
we're gonna have world intel of all these other regions or are they gonna try
to Okay, you can go back and do stuff with all these other places,
but it's gonna be more story driven like Remain. I think you'll have
a lot of stuff from the original regions that we went to and Rebirth that
you can go back and do some stuff. They already have all the assets,
so it's easy to put a lot of stuff there. But yeah,
I do think I mean, there's not a ton more, off the top
of my head, places that you're going to go visit for the very first
time, so you're only going to have another handful of regions that they can
do kind of the same deal with. I mean, obviously Wu Tai could
be a really it's going to be a pivotal part of the game, and
you can do a region there, and obviously up North as well, and
of course Noboarding will be a huge part of it. Med Deal will probably
have its own spot, So yeah, there's a few different spots. So
I really think that they're going to basically do what they did with Rebirth,
expand each area and then just add stuff to the original areas because now obviously
your airplane is back and working fashion for now, and you'll be able to
fly around to different places. And you already kind of had the ability to
go to a lot of different places already there at the end of Reburst.
So I don't, well, there's a chance that they go back to the
remake way and go straight forward. I just don't see them going back to
that. I think they just continue to expand the world to create. They
definitely got to make it. Let us use the high wind, right,
we got to fly around. They've already said, yeah, they're trying to
figure out how to implement it. Yeah. Does anybody I feel like this
the weight may not be so long. I feel like it's not going to
take them four years to do this. We had COVID during that time that
slowed everything down immensely, like and they have a lot of the world built
already. I mean, yes, they have to figure out stuff that high
when they got to do a bunch of other regions. What they're going to
do there. Does anybody think we could definitely have this and say in three
so they can do the It's a thirty year anniversary of Pop Fantasy seven here's
the third game. Yeah, I'm sure, probably an internal goal that they'd
like to hit. I mean, yeah, I hope that it happens because
I don't really want to make that long, but you know, yeah,
speaking for everyone, I'm sure, But yeah, I don't know. I
mean, I guess it just depends too, because I know one thing they
said before Rebirth release was that Horizon Forbidden West and its open world structure inspired
a lot of Rebirth. So I guess, I don't know. I guess
it just depends on what their goals are, like if they already have a
set vision for what they want the world to be like in part three,
or if it's you know, or maybe if something else comes along and they're
like, wow, this is good, let's change it to this, so
it's more like that. So I guess it just depends, really, I
mean, but yeah, i'd be surprised if the internal possibility of this would
be fantastic. Mike Randy said, they a lot of a lot of that
third part is, you know, going back to previous areas. They could
reuse a lot of the assets from Rebirth. But again, you know,
I don't know how much they're expanding, you know, like, is Uti
going to be the biggest thing we've ever seen? I don't know, And
you know, again implementing the high wind, Like, it's tough to know
they could add a lot on, but I'm cautiously optimistic only because a lot
of the areas we've been to before return in the third part. Man,
I had thought, and now we got this, is there like something that
I definitely think we're we're getting all of these is do you think it's gonna
be kind of a similar thing like we've had in the first two games,
where we're gonna get a lot of the same beats as the original seven and
then we're gonna blow it up at the end, or you think they're gonna
have a lot more kind of interspers this time. Hayes like, what do
you think? Yeah, I'm a little more mixed on that with this one.
Things, you know, the flow of events was largely the same and
rebirth, but what they added on has kind of set things up to be
pretty different. I think Wu Tai is kind of the deciding factor here,
because you know, it was entirely optional in the original game, and I
think Vincent is the other part of that. You know, all of Vincent's
story stuff was entirely optional. So I think those two pieces are going to
be mandatory now, and I think that will drastically change them. But I
think the key events from the original game are still going to be in.
It's just going to be a lot more filled in around them. Yeah.
I think the way they've set up the end with Rebirth and even a lot
of the world building from throughout Rebirth, I almost don't think it's possible to
stick rigidly to the original structure like they did in Rebirth, because you know,
you've got all this talk almost every region around the world of those anti
shindn't revealing. Well, that's good world building. I hope it goes further.
They kind of make it seem like it's going to go further, kind
of like integrate with the top woar Blutai. You've got Cloud equipping the Black
Materia at the end, which you know seems like a pretty big deal.
To just kind of ignore that and try and slip back into the regular stream
of events would be a bit jarring, So I think I think finally,
I think, well, I mean, it's kind of all trilogy structures,
and of course they're see what they were planning all along. But I think
they've been building to something that's going to be like since remake, I think
they've been building something that's going to be more drastically different for more than just
If in part three, Scott, are you ready to play their just servers
again? Because I am all right, But we're definitely gonna see more deep
ground, right because they they hinted at them. You know, we got
to see them in intermission, and then that's kind of a lot of you
know that you could tie in both you if he evinced the stories there too.
I mean, it'd be interesting to see how they bring them back.
And are we going to see Glenn's other cohorts that are supposedly with Avalanche.
You know, I felt like like what you were saying yesterday during the recording,
I feel like we definitely got to see like Avalanche HQ and that kind
of thing in there as well somewhere. Any thoughts on what we're gonna what
you want to see or we could see in part three? I do think
that it's gonna be similar in the structure of Rebirth, where most of the
plot points will be the same, but like every like chapter ending will be
slightly different. I just think they're gonna probably gonna make the chapter end the
more bombastic, so that it'll probably just be more stuff at the ending that's
gonna be a little side eyed or shifted, because that's kind of how like
Remake was initially two, where like the end of chapters were slightly different or
slightly changed because the whispers when they were introduced, and then the ending was
big. Rebirth had the same thing, but the chapter endings were also even
more so bigger because they had to include all the zact stuff at the end
of every chapter and then it got another bound basting. I think it's just
be the same way in that aspect of a lot of the plot points that
we do see will be like that, with the ending even be more blown
up. But I do think that we only have like like three new areas
that's gonna be showing up with the most of the rest of it's gonna be
retreading previous regions because like the Crater we got, rocket Town we got is
that what it's called. Yeah, a lot of and they could add at
least in actual plot beats. So this is gonna have to have a lot
more added if it wants to be in the same kind of like timeline as
rebirth. Yeah, are they going to have us go under water? By
the way, I genuinely don't know how they're going to fit everything into one
morning. Yeah, they fit a lot into rebirth. Tell you that this
thing was going to be one hundred hours. So if I'm just very curious
what the side missions are going to be to get knights around because chocob reading
is not a thing and this one, So what are they going to do
to have us go get that? Because that's going to be a big deal.
I feel like they know they have to put Knights of the round.
Yeah, I think that that would be a riot going on if they don't
put the material itself will be in. It's just how what are you going
to have to do to it? Canna be a more Chadley crap? And
I hope that when you use Nights of the Round you have to sit through
another two minute long touch and then they all all twelve of them just surround
the arena. And because with the way they do Simmons, now you know
you simon them, they do their thing and then they're just fighting with you.
I just want all twelve just all over the place. Sound like a
jet engine. I can see a case for Knights of the Round, is
like the secret Boss like Gashes. Yeah, that could. It would definitely
be something there, I agree. So what's the third one going to be?
Called? Course stole what I thought it was going to be? Whatever?
Yeah? Yeah, the one scene mentioned the most is return Final Fantasy
Return. Yeah, I could, like we do Return would be a little
boring, Yeah, just because it is something that all the hooded men have
been saying, and it's something been saying everyone's been saying, which I mean,
it would fit, But honestly, I would be a little disappointed of
them. I'm between two. Obviously, one is very close to what we
all thought it was going to be, but uh, reunite and instead of
reunion, just kind of go that that same route. Or Reclaim was another
one I've heard that I've kind of really been stuck on because ceph Roth's whole
idea is reclaiming the planet, and it seems like every single one of these
names has a hidden meeting in the actual game that that that we get.
So I'm leaning reclaims as my guess. But yeah, they kind of screwed
things up with the crisis for a reunion deal because we we all thought that
was a lock for the third game. Yeah, they really they could just
dove, Yeah yeah, come out of left field and say it's Final Fantasy
seven Roach and it's actually just all about Yes, that would be It's only
from the perspective of Roach. We don't have Cloud is not even in the
game. The Final Fantasy seven Rescue Rangers. I could I could definitely see
like redemption or something like that that could work. On the night was thinking
on was like restore a restoration just with the whole restoring the planet kind of.
Yeah, yeah, that would be a good one. It's definitely got
to have Bree in the name, so it doesn't they'll be a riot.
Restoration would actually be perfect though, because it mean it fits so well with
Cloud and actually and being restored as Cloud. That would yeah, that would
be perfect. Yeah. I mean, does anybody else have something they want
to say about this game we haven't talked about yet, or something they really
liked that you want to give a shout out to before we head out of
here here, I guess all the great stamp designs. Yeah, it's still
hilarious that they had that one moment of giving us a different stamp just to
have big stye, Like what a go ahead. I like that there's an
entire song dedicated to just the chase chasing dogs. Yeah, I was,
Oh, we didn't talk about, like listen the music in this game.
I mean, I'm gonna go to the concert in Orlando whenever it comes here.
And I don't care which of the songs they play. There's just there's
not a bad one. And that like, I love that they are able
to take just a regular song that plays during it and then they somehow make
it to a battle theme and it all works, and it's like and then
they hold the note so I can go back to the regular theme again,
and like, man, it's so good, almost seamless, all of it.
The way that they have this work. It just and then everybody has
a theme, Like there's a theme for every freaking little thing in this game,
and they really went over the top with it. I just I love
that, just it's that whole dedication to how much they love this game and
and everything on this anybody. Uh, I played an equality mode. I
didn't mess with performance, but I never I don't actually remember what I played.
Another mention, whatever it starts in five years ago, I don't remember
now games since then, only two on my end. Yeah, look,
this is a great game. I think it stands by itself. Uh,
they weren't kidding about that when they said you could play it by itself.
Well you understand I'm an iota of half the stuff that's going on in this
game. Probably not, but you can play it. So does anybody think
it works as a great like introduction to the entire Fall Fantasy? No?
Absolutely not. I'm so glad I've played the original and I knew where all
this stuff was going on, because if I played Rebirth by itself, I'd
be absolutely lost and probably not have enjoyed it as much as fandom please started.
Yeah all right, guys, Well thank you so much everybody for being
on. I was worried when I I was like, did I ask one
too many person to be on here and then wind up working out great?
All you guys are awesome. You know, if you want to go ahead
and give a plug to what y'all do here? Where we head out?
I guess starting with you Hayes, where can people find you? And all
that. Yeah, you can find me at soul Fleet on Twitter and Blue
Sky sol Fleet. Most of my work is on Inverse. If you like
Final Fantasy seven Rebirth, I'm not quite une covering it yet, so keep
an eyeyet Josh. You can find me on Twitter at Finn the Brave.
It's fio In in the Brave. No funny spellings with those, and I'm
trying to be as many places as possibly. You'll find most of my work
on Illustrated with through g LHF. But yeah, I've also I'll be around,
so keep an eye out. Scott. Alrighty, so I'm sid Scott
pretty much everywhere Twitter, Facebook and the like. You can find most of
the stuff that I write on the outer Haven dot net. Just did uh
Scott just did a previewear Blade. Yes, they are looking forward to that.
And Hayes has been doing a ton of stuff on Dragons Stop with two,
so go check that out. Andrew, they will find you. Yeah,
you can find me at Andrew Underscore Agris on Twitter. Also Andrew abras
dot com is New Things Finally there as well. And yeah, I do
most of my writing for the Outer Haven covered a ton of rebirth stuff and
I think still a couple more things in the work and the works, So
yeah, Realdy, most of my writing now has more sports stuff. But
as far as the nearly stuff, you can look me up on bad Brackets,
the new show we started a couple of months ago where I torture three
innocent souls. As far as the ridiculous brackets that I put together over certain
topics, it's over everything. Best WrestleManias was the one that just came out
yesterday. I'm about to record Best Golf Courses that'll come out next week.
And then Sean Scott and Andrew were with me yesterday. We recorded Best Final
Fantasy Games yesterday. It'll come out April fifteenth is when that episode will dropped.
So we hit every single kind of top you can imagine. The whole
point is I come up with the bracket that at some point somebody cusses at
you. That's my that's my goal, and if you want more fancy,
it's coming pretty soon. We got that Rising Tide DLC on the eighteenth,
so there go back to go back for being a party to just playing his
Clive and get to hear Ben Star be amazing again. So until you know
the next time, I will have a regular episode of Video Games for the
Max with my regular co host Mark on Fridays. We usually do it live
and then it'll be out on podcasts. Thank you all you guys for joining
me here. This was fun and hopefully we can I'll have you all on
again another time. Bye, everybody, thanks for having us. Thank you