THANKS FOR WATCHING! Follow me over on Twitch, Twitter or Facebook to make sure you don't miss any future Final Fantasy News and Theories! Twitch : www.twitch.tv/Sector_6_ Join my DISCORD : discord.gg/NwVdXHxWqR Twitter : twitter.com/Sector_6_ Facebook : facebook.com/Sector6UK
So Vincent says he has had chances to kill Sephiroth but never did. (something along those lines if I remember correctly, Right?) Wonder if we will get some scenes in Ever Crisis where Sephiroth gets saved by a random gun shot or just saved by a mysterious figure who quickly vanishes. Vincent secretly watching over Lucrecias kid, never having the heart to kill or stop him cause of his connection to her. Then the Nibelheim incident happens and Vincent sees what a mistake he made with never stopping him or telling him the truth about his mother.
Have you heard of the celestial phenomenon called the Roche Limit? I feel like this is what the character Roche is named after. It’s basically when two celestial bodies come close together, and one of them is destroyed by the shift in gravity. It reminds me of Roche/the clones and how they degrade under Jenova/Sephiroth’s influence
Oh wow, I do know about the Roche limit as I am extremely interested in Physics and Space on a pretty casual level. However, I never made this connection, I'll be putting some thought in to this! Great catch!
Your videos are never too long. Thanks for another interesting exploration of Rebirth. As far as Glen's tv appearance goes, I assume it's in the Beagle world: I read the glimpse of wosshername in Junon as showing that it's still the Beagle, not the Terrier, especially since the scene switches to Rufus et al, who are definitely Beagle. (And my hubby, a non-FF player, has just read this over my shoulder and is chortling that I'm not making any sense. Pah!)
There is a mention ofAdvent Children in this chapter, too. Loz and Yazoo have their names on a wall in the basement. I dont know if Kadaj is referenced anywhere in rebirth
Another enjoyable breakdown to listen to; only a couple more to go! The "Senzu Bean!" was great, but the Powerpuff Girls reference was hilarious. Always some fun to be had.
Sector, a lot of people were bothered by the elevator replacing that spiral staircase, also many preferred the old Nibelheim cover up to the new clinic. I really don't mind either because an elevator seems more reasonable for a lab, and the clinic sounds like a more realistic cover up, because that kind of incident couldn't be covered up. But what if that spiral staircase is still there and holds a bigger secret? I can't think of what that could be though, but I'd love a surprise. Lore notes for one idea: Chapter 11 Rebirth: Christine living in Cloud's house calls herself a chef and chantuer (French for singer). We know Tifa can cook and Aerith can sing. These are two things a mother does. Chapter 2 Remake: Sephiroth: "Cloud, run away. You have to leave. You have to live" Cloud: "You bastard!" Chapter 1 Rebirth: Cloud: "Then I stopped at my mom's. Not that it matters." The memory of Cloud at home is quickly repressed. Chapter 1 Rebirth: Claudia (repressed memory during fire): "Cloud, run away. You have to leave. You have to live." Chapter 14 Rebirth death scene: Aerith: "Cloud, it's okay." (How do we know two people aren't talking here as the lines between reality and the lifestream are blurring?) FFVII Advent Children: Throughout the story we see him grieving the deaths of Zack and Aerith. But in the dream he has after being shot by Los and Yazoo, the only word he says is 'mother.' Then he wakes up at the end to reach acceptance and move on. Do we think that the death of Claudia will be more memorable than the death of Aerith if we see it? Or will we not see it as these memories being truly repressed, not by Jenova but Cloud himself? I'd like to note, that raising a kid alone from the age of seventeen, and the kid growing up to be Cloud Strife the hero of VII isn't just impressive, it's god damn exceptional. Like top-standard person level. Sixteen years old, and your only parent is murdered by your idol.
I don't know if it'll be more memorable but I think it'll definitely have a big impact on Cloud. I think we've already seen most of what Cloud will have seen though in the Nibelheim flashback, and we even saw a bit of it at the start of Remake. Sephiroth's gonna keep using it to beat Cloud with, but he'll probably add Aerith in to that now as well.
@@Sector6UK That's actually more what I meant. I didn't phrase that last part too well. I feel like it might be one of those if you can't get over the first, then the next is always the first. Here's kind of just a thought, one we might never know: How do we know that Claudia didn't go through the same feelings of blame and grief when Cloud's dad died?
"We'd probably die down there [in the prison cell] if we didn't have Cait Sith with us." Barret: "Wait a sec, don't we have magic spells and summons we could use to bust that gate open? Why doesn't one of us just summon Titan and get outta here?" Aerith: "Sssh, you're being too logical. Next you'll be suggesting we should use a Phoenix Down if one of us gets killed."
These chapters are filled to the brim with extra fleshing out of the main story and as usual Monsieur Sector 6, your videos explain a lot and really give us a full throated understanding which you are so talented at doing. *Yuffie* I really like what they have done with Yuffie's character, while keeping that carefree attitude and materia lusting sway, they have given her a more series story and themes to deal with making her character a typical teen being forced to grow up faster than perhaps she might have. I really like how Yuffie remembers Zack, I just hope she gets a reunion with him and to see how they interact in the present would be an entertaining scenario, of course I want Zack to see Aerith but that's something else. I like how they brought Wutai soldier into Nibelheim and Yuffie is beginning to really question what's going on. I love her expanded role and now she really feels like a full fledged permanent member of the party. I will say this, I think Sonon and Melfie may actually end up beind the half-brother and sister that she never knew she had making her loss of Sonon even more tragic which she would learn from her father. *P0 Soldiers* I also like how she knows Glenn (I know you hate this theory Sector 6, but I really hope Glenn turns out to be Cloud's father as it will be another way to break Cloud with using half truth with lies. Perhaps if Glenn is his father, Sephiroth would lie about the circumstances about why he left him and his mother. Then it would become another personal question for Cloud and Tifa to find out what really happened to him and why he really left.) We know in the First Soldier mobile game there were hundreds of P0 Soldiers who tried out, so we know Shinra was expanding greatly with this elite team. I don't know if you have ever watched the First Soldier mobile trailer, but there are 3 unknown P0 soldiers that were never named which I actually took the time to name and give a back story to in a long narrative I wrote. The gray haired soldier I called him Laurel Heartwick from Rocket Town, the soldier with the dreads I called him Doran Raider from Corel, the last one I called Jacob Wheeler from Kalm. I actually thought about writing another story of them going to a fabled Island that I write about mentioned in a couple of story books "The Isle of the Fae" *Nibelheim* I kind of wished there were a few more memories that would have happened, particularly with Tifa, maybe a memory of her mother since we never get to see what her mother looked like. Again, I'm writing another story that focuses on Cloud's mom and Thea is definitely in it. I kind of wished we could have seen Tifa and Cloud re-enact the water tower scene as adults just to get the emotions flowing. Seeing Aerith sit on the water tower made me think what if the Terrier world was a parallel universe where Zack didn't die? At this part in the game obviously Zack would be right next to Aerith sitting. The whole dynamic of the party would have been greatly changed with Zack's positive energy. Jenova would have much less sway over Cloud because Zack would have the truth on his side. Also Zack's knowledge of Shinra was much more vast than Cloud's due to his security clearance and of course his friendship or rather respect he and Tseng shared. I really wonder how that dynamic would have played out? Would Tseng have acted differently?? But back to Nibelheim, it was good overall minus the spiral staircase and not being allowed to go up on the second floor in the Shinra manor. *Roche* I was really hoping that he wouldn't have become a black robe until part 3. I think they really could have tied Roche to Cloud, Zack, and Sephiroth more by having him be that guard who was swept down the river that was lost. I think they still could in part 3, perhaps in part 3 they are able to save Roche and we get this revelation of how he survived and returned back to Shinra HQ. Perhaps he was known as someone else and the trauma of the events causes Roche to completely change his identity and re-enlist with shinra becoming whom we know him as in the present timeline. *Timelines* The whole idea that the Beagle world is like all the other worlds makes a lot of sense. That was a great point, I think it's their way of keeping the purists who really want the same story somewhat appeased while giving the illusion things are different. I still hope that someway somehow, the characters such as Zack and Aerith are allowed to get "their" happy ending in a sense even if it's in another world or in a parallel universe. The idea of worlds merging is an interesting theory. I think Ever Crisis will be our biggest easter eggs up coming so we will have to pay attention to what they put out.
lol imagine if tifa just went “ nahhh dickhead” the fact that your northern makes it so much funnier, I fucking love your breakdowns dude keep up the good work. Your holding the rebirth content atm and I love it dude another great video my guy
Great video! Are you going to cover the extra story segments in Ever Crisis? Seems like it would tie into Tifa joining Avalanche and sets the stage for Tifa really bending backwards to take care of Cloud.
I hope we all get to see Cid crew and the female assistant Cid verbal harass from the first final fantasy 7 game. See Cid going to space knowing his crew help him their.😊
I find it baffling there aren't any signs of burn damage. If the whole village was burned to the ground, surely there must be _some_ visible evidence of that, even if Shinra tried its best to cover it up? Wouldn't a lot of the trees have burned too? The incident only happened five years ago, that's not enough time to cover up all the damage.
I'm actually curious about the meaning of Roche's tattoo number. IMO, the camera focused on it too many times. It has to be some sort of foreshadowing or hold some sort of significance in Part 3.
Yeah there has to be something about it, I couldn't come up with anything directly so I left it for now but I'm definitely putting some thought in to it.
37:09 I can see where you’re coming from but what point would it be if all of this was happening in another version of Midgard especially when there’s not really given any signs that this is taking place in a completely different world and I mean, maybe it’s happening in multiples but what benefit would it be if it wasn’t happening in the world that the characters are living in right now
I think it happens in both, I think Midgar as a location has been sort of broken by the end of Remake. So the second Midgar, the Terrier World, is only Midgar potentially, so it receives the same information from the outside world as the main Midgar. So it's one world, with 2 midgars, but one of them is shifted in to another world so you can't go there physically. It would be good if we are actually getting a shot of Beagle world Elmyra in Midgar, but then it feels a bit pointless showing her to us to then do literally nothing else with it afterwards. It's a weird one for sure. Thank you for watching as well!
Your explanations are great for someone who never played OG. There are a lot of parts of these games that make absolutely no sense, but knowing that it is Jenova manipulating Cloud's memories helps. I don't care about "spoilers" too much, I just want to know what the f*** is going on.
So here's the thing: outside of the Zack stuff, this is almost a one to one remake of the game. Some events are remixed and moved for more consistent story flow, but the major beats are still there. It's actually way more faithful than people are acknowledging.
I'd disagree with that, there are a lot of pretty substantial changes taking place throughout the game from Remake and Rebirth. Cloud knowing about his past this early is a change, the Wutai escalation is a change, Weapons appearing early is a change, the Gi is a change, fighting Sephiroth early in Remake is a change, the events at the end of Rebirth are technically a change etc. Lots of changes.
Let's take a look at the game as a whole in relationship to the OG. First, how many things that happened in RE trilogy thus far never happen in the OG? Cloud learns about his past early, but he still learned about his past in OG. Tifa ends up in the livestream early but she still ended up in the Lifestream in OG. The Weapons show up early, but they still showed up in OG. While technically yes, those are changes they are changes to the flow of events not the events themselves. It's like going from A B C D E F to A C B E D F. We're still getting everything, just not how we got it before. So most of the story beats are the same. Second, of the completely new stuff how much of it is just expanding on stuff to make it clearer? We learn more about the Gi and the Black materia. We learn more about the war with Wutai. Etc. I would argue that this is just stuff that would have been in the OG if they had spent more time to develop it. So setting those two aside, we're left with the wholly new material in Rebirth and my argument is that there's less of it than people might expect.
As for the why, I think this is the only way that they can maintain an interesting story for a remake. Like, yes we know you know about Cloud so we're going to change when that reveal starts happening for the returning players. We know you know that Aerith is supposed to die, so we'll execute that scene in the only way that subverts the two expectations you could have had. I truly think that when all is said and done, this will have been a much more faithful remake than many were expecting coming in. It's just made ina way that even knowing all the spoilers you can still have a good time coming along.
Things happening at different points counts as a change tbf. Lets say an event happens far earlier than it should, then everything that comes after that event has the potential to be altered as a result. The Gi creating the Black Materia isn't expansion, it's new. The Wutai war isn't expansion, it's new. Tifa ends up in the lifestream early, in a completely different scenario than she does in the OG. The weapons show up early in new forms, might not even be the weapons we know from the OG and are seemingly involved in a battle between the white and black whispers. All new. I genuinely don't get people who think nothing has changed, but you know, you do you.
![ร้อยพ่อพันแม่ - WanMai [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XY2pNYASEbg/mqdefault.jpg)
THANKS FOR WATCHING!
Follow me over on Twitch, Twitter or Facebook to make sure you don't miss any future Final Fantasy News and Theories!
Twitch : www.twitch.tv/Sector_6_
Join my DISCORD : discord.gg/NwVdXHxWqR
Twitter : twitter.com/Sector_6_
Facebook : facebook.com/Sector6UK
“We’ll get through this one in 30 minutes” video goes on to be almost an hour.
I ain’t complaining, more video for me!
I'm full of shit clearly 🤣🤣
So Vincent says he has had chances to kill Sephiroth but never did. (something along those lines if I remember correctly, Right?)
Wonder if we will get some scenes in Ever Crisis where Sephiroth gets saved by a random gun shot or just saved by a mysterious figure who quickly vanishes. Vincent secretly watching over Lucrecias kid, never having the heart to kill or stop him cause of his connection to her.
Then the Nibelheim incident happens and Vincent sees what a mistake he made with never stopping him or telling him the truth about his mother.
Have you heard of the celestial phenomenon called the Roche Limit? I feel like this is what the character Roche is named after. It’s basically when two celestial bodies come close together, and one of them is destroyed by the shift in gravity. It reminds me of Roche/the clones and how they degrade under Jenova/Sephiroth’s influence
Oh wow, I do know about the Roche limit as I am extremely interested in Physics and Space on a pretty casual level.
However, I never made this connection, I'll be putting some thought in to this!
Great catch!
Fun fact: the lines from Zack in the Jenova flashback are the same as the NPC guard in the Chapter 1.
I actually called that during maximilan dood demo play through months ago
Your videos are never too long. Thanks for another interesting exploration of Rebirth. As far as Glen's tv appearance goes, I assume it's in the Beagle world: I read the glimpse of wosshername in Junon as showing that it's still the Beagle, not the Terrier, especially since the scene switches to Rufus et al, who are definitely Beagle. (And my hubby, a non-FF player, has just read this over my shoulder and is chortling that I'm not making any sense. Pah!)
Yeah I think it happens in Beagle but somehow terrier receives the message still?
It's odd.
Stoked for this one. Love your videos, my dude!
Appreciate it! I had fun with this one, lol
26:24 you damn right. I had zero issues with the box throwing minigame
When people were telling me it was difficult I was just a bit shocked lol
You've done it again mate... Great video. 👍
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
A high-powered piss. I. Am. DEAD. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
It's all I can think of.
Queef power? 🤣🤣🤣
There is a mention ofAdvent Children in this chapter, too.
Loz and Yazoo have their names on a wall in the basement. I dont know if Kadaj is referenced anywhere in rebirth
Completely missed that!
My day is complete. Thank you!
Another enjoyable breakdown to listen to; only a couple more to go! The "Senzu Bean!" was great, but the Powerpuff Girls reference was hilarious. Always some fun to be had.
Let’s go!!! Chapter 11 is here. So close to the end. Love the breakdowns.
Sector, a lot of people were bothered by the elevator replacing that spiral staircase, also many preferred the old Nibelheim cover up to the new clinic. I really don't mind either because an elevator seems more reasonable for a lab, and the clinic sounds like a more realistic cover up, because that kind of incident couldn't be covered up. But what if that spiral staircase is still there and holds a bigger secret? I can't think of what that could be though, but I'd love a surprise.
Lore notes for one idea:
Chapter 11 Rebirth: Christine living in Cloud's house calls herself a chef and chantuer (French for singer). We know Tifa can cook and Aerith can sing. These are two things a mother does.
Chapter 2 Remake: Sephiroth: "Cloud, run away. You have to leave. You have to live" Cloud: "You bastard!"
Chapter 1 Rebirth: Cloud: "Then I stopped at my mom's. Not that it matters."
The memory of Cloud at home is quickly repressed.
Chapter 1 Rebirth: Claudia (repressed memory during fire): "Cloud, run away. You have to leave. You have to live."
Chapter 14 Rebirth death scene: Aerith: "Cloud, it's okay." (How do we know two people aren't talking here as the lines between reality and the lifestream are blurring?)
FFVII Advent Children: Throughout the story we see him grieving the deaths of Zack and Aerith. But in the dream he has after being shot by Los and Yazoo, the only word he says is 'mother.' Then he wakes up at the end to reach acceptance and move on.
Do we think that the death of Claudia will be more memorable than the death of Aerith if we see it? Or will we not see it as these memories being truly repressed, not by Jenova but Cloud himself?
I'd like to note, that raising a kid alone from the age of seventeen, and the kid growing up to be Cloud Strife the hero of VII isn't just impressive, it's god damn exceptional. Like top-standard person level. Sixteen years old, and your only parent is murdered by your idol.
I don't know if it'll be more memorable but I think it'll definitely have a big impact on Cloud.
I think we've already seen most of what Cloud will have seen though in the Nibelheim flashback, and we even saw a bit of it at the start of Remake.
Sephiroth's gonna keep using it to beat Cloud with, but he'll probably add Aerith in to that now as well.
@@Sector6UK That's actually more what I meant. I didn't phrase that last part too well. I feel like it might be one of those if you can't get over the first, then the next is always the first.
Here's kind of just a thought, one we might never know: How do we know that Claudia didn't go through the same feelings of blame and grief when Cloud's dad died?
I appreciate these videos so much bro ‼️ I get confused often lore wise when playing story games so this is super helpful, keep up the great work 🙏🙏
"We'd probably die down there [in the prison cell] if we didn't have Cait Sith with us."
Barret: "Wait a sec, don't we have magic spells and summons we could use to bust that gate open? Why doesn't one of us just summon Titan and get outta here?"
Aerith: "Sssh, you're being too logical. Next you'll be suggesting we should use a Phoenix Down if one of us gets killed."
Logic is our enemy.
These chapters are filled to the brim with extra fleshing out of the main story and as usual Monsieur Sector 6, your videos explain a lot and really give us a full throated understanding which you are so talented at doing.
*Yuffie*
I really like what they have done with Yuffie's character, while keeping that carefree attitude and materia lusting sway, they have given her a more series story and themes to deal with making her character a typical teen being forced to grow up faster than perhaps she might have. I really like how Yuffie remembers Zack, I just hope she gets a reunion with him and to see how they interact in the present would be an entertaining scenario, of course I want Zack to see Aerith but that's something else. I like how they brought Wutai soldier into Nibelheim and Yuffie is beginning to really question what's going on. I love her expanded role and now she really feels like a full fledged permanent member of the party. I will say this, I think Sonon and Melfie may actually end up beind the half-brother and sister that she never knew she had making her loss of Sonon even more tragic which she would learn from her father.
*P0 Soldiers*
I also like how she knows Glenn (I know you hate this theory Sector 6, but I really hope Glenn turns out to be Cloud's father as it will be another way to break Cloud with using half truth with lies. Perhaps if Glenn is his father, Sephiroth would lie about the circumstances about why he left him and his mother. Then it would become another personal question for Cloud and Tifa to find out what really happened to him and why he really left.) We know in the First Soldier mobile game there were hundreds of P0 Soldiers who tried out, so we know Shinra was expanding greatly with this elite team. I don't know if you have ever watched the First Soldier mobile trailer, but there are 3 unknown P0 soldiers that were never named which I actually took the time to name and give a back story to in a long narrative I wrote. The gray haired soldier I called him Laurel Heartwick from Rocket Town, the soldier with the dreads I called him Doran Raider from Corel, the last one I called Jacob Wheeler from Kalm. I actually thought about writing another story of them going to a fabled Island that I write about mentioned in a couple of story books "The Isle of the Fae"
*Nibelheim*
I kind of wished there were a few more memories that would have happened, particularly with Tifa, maybe a memory of her mother since we never get to see what her mother looked like. Again, I'm writing another story that focuses on Cloud's mom and Thea is definitely in it. I kind of wished we could have seen Tifa and Cloud re-enact the water tower scene as adults just to get the emotions flowing. Seeing Aerith sit on the water tower made me think what if the Terrier world was a parallel universe where Zack didn't die? At this part in the game obviously Zack would be right next to Aerith sitting. The whole dynamic of the party would have been greatly changed with Zack's positive energy. Jenova would have much less sway over Cloud because Zack would have the truth on his side. Also Zack's knowledge of Shinra was much more vast than Cloud's due to his security clearance and of course his friendship or rather respect he and Tseng shared. I really wonder how that dynamic would have played out? Would Tseng have acted differently?? But back to Nibelheim, it was good overall minus the spiral staircase and not being allowed to go up on the second floor in the Shinra manor.
*Roche*
I was really hoping that he wouldn't have become a black robe until part 3. I think they really could have tied Roche to Cloud, Zack, and Sephiroth more by having him be that guard who was swept down the river that was lost. I think they still could in part 3, perhaps in part 3 they are able to save Roche and we get this revelation of how he survived and returned back to Shinra HQ. Perhaps he was known as someone else and the trauma of the events causes Roche to completely change his identity and re-enlist with shinra becoming whom we know him as in the present timeline.
*Timelines*
The whole idea that the Beagle world is like all the other worlds makes a lot of sense. That was a great point, I think it's their way of keeping the purists who really want the same story somewhat appeased while giving the illusion things are different. I still hope that someway somehow, the characters such as Zack and Aerith are allowed to get "their" happy ending in a sense even if it's in another world or in a parallel universe. The idea of worlds merging is an interesting theory. I think Ever Crisis will be our biggest easter eggs up coming so we will have to pay attention to what they put out.
lol imagine if tifa just went “ nahhh dickhead” the fact that your northern makes it so much funnier, I fucking love your breakdowns dude keep up the good work. Your holding the rebirth content atm and I love it dude another great video my guy
The northerner comes out too often lol
Noticed the “easter egg” of the shorter black cloak around 4:40-4:50. Homage to the OG?
I did not you know! lol
Great video! Are you going to cover the extra story segments in Ever Crisis? Seems like it would tie into Tifa joining Avalanche and sets the stage for Tifa really bending backwards to take care of Cloud.
I hope we all get to see Cid crew and the female assistant Cid verbal harass from the first final fantasy 7 game. See Cid going to space knowing his crew help him their.😊
Also, can we talk about how Tifa is doing the most to protect her beau's mental health? Best girl.
The childhood friends are definitely watching out for each other.
Fantastic analysis. Thank you.
I miss the old Cid story line before they left us the New one chance his character. But it's not bad at all too.
Sephiroth has a Scripthook Plugin just for Cloud.
Nice! lmao
If there isn't at least 25% of this spent talking about how you now love Paul Tinto, we are no longer friends.
.............lol
I mean I do though!
I find it baffling there aren't any signs of burn damage. If the whole village was burned to the ground, surely there must be _some_ visible evidence of that, even if Shinra tried its best to cover it up? Wouldn't a lot of the trees have burned too? The incident only happened five years ago, that's not enough time to cover up all the damage.
Make Pressure Washers? Power Wash Simulator is canon?
I'm actually curious about the meaning of Roche's tattoo number.
IMO, the camera focused on it too many times. It has to be some sort of foreshadowing or hold some sort of significance in Part 3.
Yeah there has to be something about it, I couldn't come up with anything directly so I left it for now but I'm definitely putting some thought in to it.
Awesome video mate and that thumbnail haha
37:09 I can see where you’re coming from but what point would it be if all of this was happening in another version of Midgard especially when there’s not really given any signs that this is taking place in a completely different world and I mean, maybe it’s happening in multiples but what benefit would it be if it wasn’t happening in the world that the characters are living in right now
I think it happens in both, I think Midgar as a location has been sort of broken by the end of Remake.
So the second Midgar, the Terrier World, is only Midgar potentially, so it receives the same information from the outside world as the main Midgar.
So it's one world, with 2 midgars, but one of them is shifted in to another world so you can't go there physically.
It would be good if we are actually getting a shot of Beagle world Elmyra in Midgar, but then it feels a bit pointless showing her to us to then do literally nothing else with it afterwards.
It's a weird one for sure.
Thank you for watching as well!
I really wish they had treated Nibelheim like in OG.
Your explanations are great for someone who never played OG. There are a lot of parts of these games that make absolutely no sense, but knowing that it is Jenova manipulating Cloud's memories helps. I don't care about "spoilers" too much, I just want to know what the f*** is going on.
So here's the thing: outside of the Zack stuff, this is almost a one to one remake of the game. Some events are remixed and moved for more consistent story flow, but the major beats are still there. It's actually way more faithful than people are acknowledging.
I'd disagree with that, there are a lot of pretty substantial changes taking place throughout the game from Remake and Rebirth.
Cloud knowing about his past this early is a change, the Wutai escalation is a change, Weapons appearing early is a change, the Gi is a change, fighting Sephiroth early in Remake is a change, the events at the end of Rebirth are technically a change etc.
Lots of changes.
Let's take a look at the game as a whole in relationship to the OG. First, how many things that happened in RE trilogy thus far never happen in the OG? Cloud learns about his past early, but he still learned about his past in OG. Tifa ends up in the livestream early but she still ended up in the Lifestream in OG. The Weapons show up early, but they still showed up in OG. While technically yes, those are changes they are changes to the flow of events not the events themselves. It's like going from A B C D E F to A C B E D F. We're still getting everything, just not how we got it before. So most of the story beats are the same. Second, of the completely new stuff how much of it is just expanding on stuff to make it clearer? We learn more about the Gi and the Black materia. We learn more about the war with Wutai. Etc. I would argue that this is just stuff that would have been in the OG if they had spent more time to develop it. So setting those two aside, we're left with the wholly new material in Rebirth and my argument is that there's less of it than people might expect.
As for the why, I think this is the only way that they can maintain an interesting story for a remake. Like, yes we know you know about Cloud so we're going to change when that reveal starts happening for the returning players. We know you know that Aerith is supposed to die, so we'll execute that scene in the only way that subverts the two expectations you could have had. I truly think that when all is said and done, this will have been a much more faithful remake than many were expecting coming in. It's just made ina way that even knowing all the spoilers you can still have a good time coming along.
Things happening at different points counts as a change tbf.
Lets say an event happens far earlier than it should, then everything that comes after that event has the potential to be altered as a result.
The Gi creating the Black Materia isn't expansion, it's new.
The Wutai war isn't expansion, it's new.
Tifa ends up in the lifestream early, in a completely different scenario than she does in the OG.
The weapons show up early in new forms, might not even be the weapons we know from the OG and are seemingly involved in a battle between the white and black whispers. All new.
I genuinely don't get people who think nothing has changed, but you know, you do you.
Also, FFX-2 is fantastic. Sorry not sorry.
Probably one of the best battle/class systems and a super fun end dungeon. Gets overshadowed by the story.
SENZU BEAN!