SPOILERS [FF VIIR] Ending thoughts and feelings overall about particular things

So this has to do with the overall game soooo spoilers ahead for all of part 1! Not putting anything in spoilers final warning!









This mainly is to discuss what the Whispers are and what everyone in the game sees them as.




So my first thoughts of the game are we should not expect to know anything about what to expect in part 2. The whispers or whatever you want to call them seem to be leading the team to the way that the original game ended, and now your team is defying that ending, and it already had been changed with Wedge and Biggs still alive.


With that being said, let us discuss this Sephiroth in the remake... This Sephiroth seems to know how things are suppose to play out, let us call him... One that knows the future, and somehow knows that Cloud is a way to defy that ending, the ending where Sephiroth still dies. Which seems to be Sephiroths new goal. We see the original ending with the Meteor and Red XIII and even Aetith death... So does this Sephiroth try to change that or follow it to a certain point?

Next let us discuss Zacks inclusion into this... Now I don't think he is still alive, or that they will bring him back... Think we might have seen that maybe Zack saw the whispers and kinda knew what they were. So did he die? Yes, but seems like his story isnt over and we will be seeing more of him in part 2.

Now we know Biggs and Wedge at least have survived (Wish they would have shown Jessie surviving... They built her up the most out of the Avalanche group... But digress). With this they have changed destiny, will this mean that major changes are going effect the future of Part 2? We will see.



So overall feelings... We should not see this as a remake vs a reboot. How much shall change... We shall see... Think anything Major that was suppose to happen in the original FFVII timeline we will see the whispers help the cast there... But if Cloud and gang try to change any event, be prepared for Whispers to be enemies...

So what do you think the Whispers are???

'The Whispers' as you call them is the most surprising element of that Remake. I'm quite happy to see many parts of the story extended and to see new elements added to it.

First surprise comes quite quickly with the fact that reactor 1 is blown not by Avalanche's bomb but by a self destruct system from Shinra.
The final result is the same that in OG but the way it's done is a bit different.

Whispers are looking like these white ghosts you have in the haunted train of FF VI. In VII Remake they have grey caps but the same look.
Looking at the story they are looking to be some kind of 'Guardians' that are making sure some events are happening and that are changing some others.

When the pillar is attacked, Shinra looks to be in position to loose the point, Rude and Reno are defeated by the team and at this point they can't press the red button to confirm the destruction sequence. Here the whispers are blocking the team to access the control panel which allows Rude to finally press the button and destroy the pillar. That event HAD to happen and when it was going to be changed, whispers have given a nope to the team and forced the event to happen.

Another major intervention of Whispers is in President Shinra office, after all the mess, Sephiroth is killing him like in the OG but also kills Barret which is a major change to the story but which is immediately cancelled as whispers are reviving him, probably because he is a main part of the story and still have lots of things to do for the future.

Of course Biggs and Wedge surviving is a major surprise as in the OG, B, W and Jesse are crushed with the sector 7 plate's fall. Biggs is quite surprising because when Cloud and Tifa are meeting him on the pillar, he's looking to die. How does he espace the pillar and the sector with so much wounds assuming he's very weak but still alive when Cloud & Tifa are leaving him to continue. Here we can only suppose that Whispers are healing him and giving him a way to escape sector 7.

One point is that Whispers are looking to have an absolute power, they can make something impossible, possible. They can be good or evil and at this stage of the game no one really knows what are they and who are they serving.

In the OG when quitting Midgar the game sends us into a roadtrip heading to the top of the Northern region where Sephiroth body is in the ice. They are following a ghost the whole time until that point.

Another point is that Hojo looks to have a more important role in the Remake. They have added a lot of content for him on the Shinra HQ's attack. He has a whole bunch of lab rooms, there's also that hidden lab under the sector 7 slums which is a new element added to the Remake.

We can imagine that Hojo will have a strong role in part 2. In the OG we only see him spending time at Costa Del Sol's beach and he doesn't really make anything until the end of CD3 when he tries to overload the Sisray.

Are the whispers obeying to Sephiroth ? I'm not sure, they are probably something higher. Maybe in the Remake we will see another evil force. There's that scene in the ending where Cloud and Sephiroth are meeting in a place in the middle of the universe.
Maybe we are going to something a little like in FF IX, the roots of all evil, the God of darknesses. Or maybe this can be Jenova. Jenova is supposed to be a calamity fallen from the sky 2 000 years ago, but where is Jenova coming from ? From the outer space ? If so, maybe Jenova is just a 'seeker' sent by a stronger evil force which comes back to the first theory I told.

We see things about Aerith and the Meteor, we suppose they show us a part of the future but what if it's some past events ? What if FF7 Remake is sending us to a full new story where Sephiroth comes back for another purpose ? Or maybe these are the actual future events but Sephiroth and Cloud are meant to make different choices and maybe finally unite to fight that supposed stronger evil ?

About Zack this is a story I haven't followed enough to make theories about him.

Unfortunately it looks like Squenix is going to end up changing more than they needed to just for the sake of "doing something different". The original FF7 was a great game. If it's not broke, don't fix it right?

Anyways, it appears we will have to wait for Part 2 or even Part 3 to truly understand what is going on with the whispers.

Before I say anything I still give the game 8.5 or 9 out of ten. I loved the game. Thoroughly. The ending is just giving me a lot to process right now.

Shaissa said:

This mainly is to discuss what the Whispers are and what everyone in the game sees them as.

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My understanding is that the Whispers are tasked with protecting the original timeline (the chain of events which we are familiar with in the original game). Red XIII and Aerith make comments along these lines in the Shinra HQ, and it appears to fit their behaviour in the game. They attack and maim Jessie in the slums so that she doesn’t go on the second bombing mission so that Cloud and Tifa can go instead. They prevent the Turks from capturing Aerith before Cloud has a chance to benefit from her guidance to Wall Market. Many more things too.

They appear to be from the future. If you use Assess on the colourful trio of Whispers (what I might dub the Power Ranger Whispers) during the final battle/s then the data says they are from an unknown point in time in the future. I couldn't take a screenshot as the final chapter is locked content.

Shaissa said:

With that being said, let us discuss this Sephiroth in the remake... This Sephiroth seems to know how things are suppose to play out, let us call him... One that knows the future, and somehow knows that Cloud is a way to defy that ending, the ending where Sephiroth still dies. Which seems to be Sephiroths new goal. We see the original ending with the Meteor and Red XIII and even Aetith death... So does this Sephiroth try to change that or follow it to a certain point?

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My interpretation is that Sephiroth has foreseen his death and has adapted his grand plan accordingly. Him and Aerith appear to have a firmer understanding of what they are seeing with the Whispers than others (Red XIII perhaps being better than the others too).

Shaissa said:

Now we know Biggs and Wedge at least have survived (Wish they would have shown Jessie surviving... They built her up the most out of the Avalanche group... But digress). With this they have changed destiny, will this mean that major changes are going effect the future of Part 2? We will see.

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Out of all of the changes, the survival of Wedge and Biggs (and the implied survival of Jessie) is the one which frustrates me the most. I love all three of these characters, but all of them surviving (or implied to have survived in Jessie’s case) cheapens the plate dropping scene for me.

I'm okay with the timey-wimey stuff to a degree as the Remake has now split into an alternate timeline (or timelines) - that could be quite exciting in its own way. I guess I feel a bit weird about Biggs and Jessie being brought back to life. As much as I love them, I feel like they've undone the tragedy of the plate collapse a bit too much.

They even had Reeve give a figure for the number of people living in Sector 7 (something like 50,000) so that we could get a sense of the scale of the tragedy before it even occurred. NPCs in neighbouring slums and even in the Shinra HQ are all horrified by its aftermath. But we also needed to experience the plate collapse through characters we know and care about (hence Wedge, Biggs and Jessie). I was a bit annoyed at Wedge surviving via a sinkhole, etc, but I rolled with it. That's one character, I thought, so we can still get a sense of how tragic it is because other people died. I presume some of his cats got squashed at least. However Biggs and Jessie being magicked back to life at the end is more difficult to get behind, as much as I love them. I wonder how many people actually died in the plate collapse now? There should still be thousands of deaths, but because they've undone the ones which we had a personal connection with we might get more detached from it all.

The plate scene was so well done in this Remake and Barret’s reaction was heartbreaking (as was Tifa’s scene with Cloud in Aerith’s garden– for those of us who got that scene, as it is affection based). I'm a bit sad that all of these excellent scenes with some believably raw emotion have been undone. It was a defining moment in the character arcs of Barret and Tifa (but also Cloud) in the original game and is something which drives them (and the player) forward against Shinra. It showed that there are consequences and serious stakes. This change has undermined that, and I think Square Enix have sadly misjudged this part.

It would be like Simba entering a portal during his fight with Scar and when he returns Mufasa is alive as well as all the zebras ever eaten by all the lions in the Pridelands....

I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come. I hope this Remake project doesn’t become one of those games where nobody dies. I think they should commit to deaths and let them matter. Tragedies create good stories and can help people deal with death and tragic situations in real life. The dropping of the plate was a real tragedy of 9/11 proportions (or bigger) and should have been kept that way. It can give people a model for mourning or warnings of how to not let revenge consume you. If people are going to respawn upon death then nothing matters anymore and there is no sense of a threat.

It'll take me some time to come to terms with this change in particular.

Shaissa said:

So overall feelings... We should not see this as a remake vs a reboot. How much shall change... We shall see... Think anything Major that was suppose to happen in the original FFVII timeline we will see the whispers help the cast there... But if Cloud and gang try to change any event, be prepared for Whispers to be enemies...

Click to expand...

I think the Whispers are gone now. We defeated them and the player party are no longer bound by Destiny to follow the path of the original timeline. We are now in an alternate reality. A split universe. We might eventually encounter (or become aware of) the future the Whispers were trying to maintain and why the Whispers wanted the original game's storyline to remain unaltered. The party might learn to regret their decision if they've made their own situation worse, but I would guess (and hope) that we don’t encounter the Whispers during every crucial scene in part 2. Their role has ended for now, I think.

Shaissa said:

So what do you think the Whispers are???

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Maybe the will of the Planet, but from the future? They are definitely beings from the future anyway, as the Assess scan data states that.

They are not beholden to Sephiroth or the player. They simply work to ensure that the events of the original game play out as they should. Until we kick their ass. Now they are gone we don’t know what is going to come next.

Also... We don't actually know what future the Whispers were trying to protect. Did we even do the right thing in destroying them? I mean the future we've destroyed is one where we actually end up triumphing against Sephiroth, albeit with significant losses. Have we shot ourselves in the foot?