Forum - View topicReflecting on Aerith's Death on the Eve of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth's Release
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Gemnist
Posts: 1762 |
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I’m hoping they don’t kill her this time around. There is absolutely no suspense leading up to it; everyone would know it’s coming. On top of that, Aerith remembering the events of the first game along with Sephiroth is just too important to let go.
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4631 Location: New York |
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You know it's a big deal when it ends up having a feature article in the New York Times of all places. That is how iconic Aeris's death is. Half the selling point of the original Kingdom Hearts besides the Disney crossover stuff was Aeris still being alive.
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wingweaver84
Posts: 76 |
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Aerith's death was a major element of the original story. For me it would make more sense to have the characters,assuming they learn of her intents,do everything in their power to avoid the inevitable but ultimately are powerless to stop it. That to me would have a bigger impact than just having her survive Masamune. |
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tintor2
 Posts: 2167 |
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Deaths in RPGs weren't that weird in the 90s but Aerith's sure took a lot of impact. I mean, on the other hand, Crono in Chrono Trigger was less a character and more of a player avatar and he could be revived if the player wanted. FFIV had a more definitive death but it comes probably way earlier too. Then again, half of the cast of IV could die and survive somehow as they return in the final cutscenes. If there is a character death that gives the cast of the game a big shock it might be spoiler[Persona 3's protagonist as Yukari and Aigis' characterization change for the worse in the Answer segment as they deal with overcoming his death.] I remember CyberConnect2 CEO Hiroshi Matsuyama said once he couldn't talk about death in .hack or .hack//gu so the victims always went into a coma leading to a major impact when he started making the Naruto games which were filled with several big deaths.
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medicinodestiny
Posts: 49 |
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I don't think I had that strong of a reaction to it, but then I was used to it by the time PlayStation came around. The SNES/Genesis had plenty of RPGs where characters die like the Phantasy Star series or Estpolis/Lufia. I'd argue those affected me a lot more, but I was also younger when I played those than when I first played FF7
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R. Kasahara
 Posts: 711 |
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This would be powerful. The game that gave me the strongest emotional reaction was spoiler[Half-Life 2: Episode 2], and it was because of the player's helplessness in a certain crucial scene. It was an upsetting scene, masterfully executed, that left me an emotional mess. That level of restraint would be something to see in this "remake" trilogy. Though, knowing Square Enix, I'm still a little skeptical that they'll go this route. For one thing, spoiler[Final Fantasy VII Resurrection would be too irresistible of a title for the third game  ]
Last edited by R. Kasahara on Mon Feb 26, 2024 2:26 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2695 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Or, for a twist, have Aerith know about her ultimate fate, but decides that instead of simply praying for Holy she tries taking Sephiroth down with her, like turning around right before she's stabbed, so that she's facing Sephiroth now. She then grabs ahold of Sephiroth & pleads for Cloud to finish things off right then & there, creating a new dilemma for Cloud. |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2567 |
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I still haven't played FF7, and totally failed to play it when I tried an emulator; I'm not typically super focused on aesthetics, but the original 3D graphics did not age well. Wish I could somehow forget that I learned about Aerith's death (long ago -- not from this article, of course), for the sake of playing the remake. Need reverse Matrix tech to remove it from my brain.
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Chris Handsome
 Posts: 318 |
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Get the PC version and some mods. You can do alot with it to make it look nicer. That said, Aeris' death did not bother me because for starters I barely used her outside of the parts of the game you were required to have her, and her role as a magic/support type character is easily replaced by far better characters with better base stats and limits. Her personality never did it for me either. She's older than Cloud and Tifa but comes across as the most childish character, moreso than even Yuffie. She's also really dense, see the part when you arrive at the Gold Saucer and she manages to anger Barret. I have not played remake, I've seen some of the playthrough and her character just... I can't. Especially when she is thirsting over Cloud ind rag. |
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residentgrigo
 Posts: 2617 Location: Germany |
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Her death was part of the advertent campaign in America and Europe without fully saying that it´s her corpse Cloud lays to rest in the water. But what else could it be? I got it and I could barely count my age on 2 hands when I saw the trailers on demo discs. A love that could never be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDxikKSDtZg
And that´s why I don´t get why gamers who casually followed magazines and whatnot could be surprised by any of it. Her death is fine but hardly a top 5 moment of the game and she is one of the weaker written characters in the game despite her bing part of the first draft, unlike Tifa who was a mid-development addition. The big death in Phantasy Star IV 1993 is the golden standard when it comes to RPGs in the 90s if you ask me. 
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Fluwm
 Posts: 1056 |
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They've really written themselves into a corner here. Either they stay faithful to the original, in which they wind up wasting a ton of time on misdirection that leads nowhere, or they deviate even further and rob us of one of gaming's most iconic moments for no real reason beyond defying player expectations. It's a lose-lose scenario. Like many of the issues with these games, it's all rooted in their decision to chop up a single story into discrete parts. All they have to really drive the plot of this middle act is the will-they-won't-they tension of Aeris' death. |
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MFrontier
Posts: 14204 |
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Honestly I feel like it would severely impact Cloud and Tifa's character arcs, and the wider narrative of the game, if they keep her alive. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6358 |
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It’s only lose-lose if you’re in the camp of people who treat the original game and many of its elements as sacrosanct. Not to mention as Remake made a number of deviations from the original game you might as well keep that forward momentum going. |
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q_3
Posts: 173 |
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General Leo will arrive at the last minute to save her.
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WoodDude
 Posts: 72 |
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I'm not a fan of the stuff they've done already. I won't get into Rebirth stuff due to spoilers and it being new, but in Remake the little changes like making it so it was Shinra who made the reactor explosion worse to absolve Jesse and the others of being responsible for killing people, or making it so the Turks didn't want to do the plate collapsing thing to make them more redeemable felt like cop-outs and trying to make the character less fallible and interesting. Rebirth continues this trend, but again I wont get into it here.
I'm not sure how they'll handle Aerith. If they want to 'fix' the 'mistake' of killing her and/or reviving her to making everything all sunshine and rainbows and everyone lives happily ever after and have no flaws then it would be very disappointing but not entirely unexpected for what the new games have been doing so far. May as well keep Zack alive while we're at it. And Sephiroth gets redeemed because he was just misunderstood. 
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