I have, but I’m going through the Remake trilogy and my partner is watching me complete the game. As far as I know they have somehow stayed unspoiled this whole time, so I’m going to try to keep it that way as long as I can. I’m playing Remake on Hard to remember the story and delay until my next paycheck, but will zoom through as fast as I can to get any cool stuff I missed and then jump into Rebirth.
But I’m just curious, will they still enjoy Rebirth as much as I enjoyed the original games? Or do they change too many things for the sake of the meta-narrative? They are adamant they won’t play the original btw, they are watching me play for the story while on their phone, and I don’t think will be able to get past the old graphics and lack of voice acting, so I suspect the “This is a sequel, just play the original game” line I keep seeing on Reddit won’t fly for them.
Most of the story beats are still there. Most of the emotions from the OG are still there - except one thing. I’ll try to avoid spoilers but if you’ve played OG and remake, you should know.
The major change in the story itself is the continuation of something you saw at the very tail end of the first Remake, that probably made you go WTF, the meta-narrative you’re suspicious about. It might be a concept you don’t really like because it sounds like it’ll break the story, but it actually doesn’t concretely change anything until the end. The places, the events, the world, the mission are still the same. The most critical change that caused a lot of noise is a big cliffhanger that will only be resolved in the final game, when it was expected to be a big emotional hit now. It’s very clear that this is a trilogy, and expecting this game to end the same way as the OG caused a lot of distress. People who loved the OG for one specific reason or another might feel robbed by the way this game is pretending to change things, but actually doesn’t, but actually maybe yes - and you’ll only get the resolution in the last game. If that means something to you, maybe you should wait for the trilogy to be completed and treat it as a single game, because this part 2 is only half of the game you liked back then, and it might not have what made you love it - yet.
One big change in storytelling is what it focuses on: it gets much more into the psychology of Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Barret, about mental health, trauma, and their relationships (in the same way they massively developped the Avalanche trio in Remake). Basically, they’re making everyone real human beings with a history and interactions. Now you understand from the inside of their head why they do or don’t do this or that. It also adds focus on some aspects and perspectives that only developed in the Crisis Core prequel and were not a thing in the OG. It’s a massive improvement on storytelling and world building (the world now has a history of geopolitics scattered everywhere in every side quests), but it looks like a lot of fans of the OG who expected things to go a certain way get hung up and slowed down by all the new details, and it feels like fluff or a change they don’t like. You clearly feel the stretch from one 50 hour long turn-based RPG into 3 action RPG that last 50 (remake) + 120 (rebirth) + 1?? (part 3) hours, and it’s a lot, and you might not like it.
It absolutely has tons of gaming content to enjoy, both in the characters and the absolute shitload of things and side quests and mini-games to do absolutely everywhere for a 120 hours playthrough and you don’t even see the time pass, but it might not be exactly what you felt in the OG. It’s a new perspective. I’ve seen among various streamers that the people who were the most confused by the ending are often the harder fans of the OG, and new fans see the details and hidden explanations that OG fans miss because they think they know what’s going on - and get blue-balled on what they came here for.
And then Sephiroth changes. We still don’t know if they’re whitewashing him by giving him a sad backstory and a big personal mission (the gacha game Ever Crisis that’s still ongoing is developing his time as a young SOLDIER) or if they’re making him an even worse guy, and so far it has the potential to ruin the character. We have to wait until it’s all resolved.
Also crossing my fingers they don’t white wash Sephiroth’s character too much 🤞 If they do, guess I won’t play that side gacha game lol.
Haha I think you nailed exactly where I’m coming from, what made me confused, suspicious, and what emotional beats I was hoping they wouldn’t ruin, like at the end of the OG’s disc 1 or a certain twist in disc 2 (which I know we haven’t gotten to yet, but it’s probably why I won’t show them Crisis Core Réunion until after the third in the trilogy, because I heard it blows that twist). It sounds like the creators of the game might be causing this distress to me on purpose, but it doesn’t change as much as I think, which would be great, that would be perfect lol. Especially if it really only affects me because I’ve played the original, without it sacrificing a good story for my partner who hasn’t played the original. I don’t want it just to be a commentary on remakes or something, because while that would be cool for me, that wouldn’t mean anything to them. But if they still get a great experience, too, hell, even a better experience than me, that would be even better. Because I still have the original, I’ve already fallen in love with the world and the characters. I want a new generation of fans to feel that, too, without needing a PSN Premium subscription lol.
I absolutely loved the way Remake delved more into the various characters and how it treated all of them with respect and love, they felt like real people but still felt unique. Barrett was silly but still cool and passionate. Cloud was edgy and a badass but he had his occasional soft side. Tifa and Aerith’s budding friendship is so nice and they both have great relationships with each other and Cloud. And I loved the additional detail on the Avalanche trio. Remake was actually absolutely perfect for me, it’s exactly the right addition of detail and I love it, and it’s gotten my partner interested in the world of FF7 for the first time, which is also great. It was only the end that made me cock an eyebrow, like you said lol. If Rebirth is more of that, which it sounds like it is, I’m so excited! It makes me want to get the game right now.
Thabks for the amazing, detailed answer. This is exactly what I was looking for.
Related to the end: while it made me kind of worried about what it hinted for changes in the next game (especially one scene at the very end I thought was a big deal about revealing a certain character which would cause huge ripples) my partner had no qualms. They got the general idea that something happened before, but it’s changing, which I guess to them would probably just be like any other prophecy based plot, and just kind of left all other questions to be answered in the next game. I suppose that’s not too different from where I was when I left Midgar in the original, though.