The Art of Dying: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth And The Power of Letting Go

Spoilers for Closing Fantasy VII [1997], Remake, and Rebirth.

Even with way more limitations in the best way, the desperation started nearly as quickly as the unique recreation was on cabinets and the primary particular person noticed Aerith die in Closing Fantasy VII. The singular query haunted AOL chat rooms, usenet, and recreation journal mailboxes for years: Can we deliver her again?

Video games have such an odd relationship with the concept of demise, so it is sensible that gamers in 1997–starved of narratives with any actual everlasting stakes past what number of quarters you’ll be able to pump in or whether or not you actually wished to battle all the best way again to the place you died–would have a response to Aerith being completely useless. It’s baked proper into the narrative in actual fact, with Cloud, even with all of his emotional harm, greedy the enormity. “Aerith will not speak, not snicker, cry, or get indignant….” Cloud wrestles, within the second she dies in his arms, with grief for the primary time. And Sephiroth doesn’t give a shit. Sephiroth is past human issues. He is aware of what Cloud is, and flies away along with his light amusement. Cloud is a puppet. To him, feelings for somebody finally meaningless within the bigger context of time and house are not any totally different than a toddler weeping as a result of it by chance stepped on a dandelion. However that is the interior battle that may outline the following stretch of FF7. Cloud discovers what he’s, and has to return to grips with what it really means to be human, as a result of simply copying Zack Truthful’s homework will solely get him up to now.

As a singular work, Closing Fantasy VII’s ensemble of rebels involves the top with proud, full hearts, accepting what should be accomplished to avoid wasting Gaia. Nevertheless it doesn’t take lengthy for followers and Sq. Enix to search out methods to cheat demise, from GameShark codes permitting gamers to maintain Aerith within the get together after she’s useless, to Sq. Enix futzing with their very own guidelines to make the most of Aerith in Introduction Youngsters and Kingdom Hearts. In a medium the place demise is all the time an simply solvable drawback—hell, in a recreation collection the place resurrection is normally one Phoenix Down away—Aerith being useless needs to be a short lived inconvenience at greatest. She’s solely largely useless, proper?

The best present, and the best energy of Closing Fantasy VII: Rebirth, is that there isn’t any such respite available in it. From the second the sport begins, Aerith’s days are numbered, with the inevitable second when gamers must grapple with the potential of her martyr’s demise performing as an oppressive weight on the whole recreation. The dread of Shinra, Sephiroth, and the lifestream itself, all of which might put an finish to our get together’s quest, provides to the stress, forcing our get together and each playable character to take care of the peril in their very own means. The one one who by no means buckles is Aerith.

Aerith, from the very begin of Remake, is aware of greater than anybody about the place the trail leads for her and her associates. It’s by no means stated outright, however the implication is seeded pretty usually that she is aware of how she dies. It turns into clear what number of forces conspire in opposition to them, threatening to tear the whole get together of heroes asunder. And but, in that second, standing outdoors Midgar, all Aerith can do is have a look at the probabilities of the inexperienced, verdant world stretching in entrance of her, and be glad about the corporate she will get to share it with. There’s one thing to be stated for simply how a lot of Rebirth is sidequests,new mechanics you get to make use of as soon as and by no means once more, and unusual flights of fancy. And but, not like most open world video games, that friction between the significance of the higher quest and the frivolity of the elective stuff isn’t a lot a dissonant observe, however the whole level.

As the sport involves an in depth, Aerith takes an unconscious Cloud via her reminiscences of the Midgar Slums. Shinra is flying to the Temple of the Ancients, and Aerith desires you to attempt sweet.

Sephiroth is ready for his probability to homicide everybody. Aerith desires you to select jewellery.The multiverse that’s Closing Fantasy VII is threatening to break down. Aerith desires nothing greater than for Cloud to take a look at her and maintain her hand.

There was a Eurogamer article not long ago the place Robert Buy requested an inexpensive if misguided query: “Why is it that in a role-playing recreation the place the stakes are normally ‘the top of the world’, the top of the world all the time has to attend for us to complete our sprawling to-do checklist first?” An affordable query approached from the improper angle. The query, as a rule, is why the top of the world all the time feels inconsequential? There’s a purpose why 0% speedruns of Breath of the Wild the place gamers rocket over to battle Calamity Ganon the second they put a shirt on by no means really feel out of pocket: that’s a recreation that holds the results of saving the world low-cost, to ensure that the participant to create that treasured immersion builders love a lot. Nintendo’s removed from alone on that; that is how most open experiences are supposed to function to provide gamers energy.

Closing Fantasy VII was by no means designed in a means the place the specter of Sephiroth, Meteor, Shinra et al have been meant to fade into the background. As soon as Sephiroth makes the fateful name, the attractive overworld music vanishes, changed by some of the ominous items of music Nobuo Uematsu would ever compose. You actually can not step outdoors with out remembering what should be accomplished, and a part of why it’s efficient is as a result of we’ve seen the sport prepared to take somebody treasured away from the participant to get there– one thing irretrievable and irreplaceable. It’s solely after the truth that gamers and Sq. tried to fill the opening of Aerith’s absence with out retconning the entire thing. Rebirth, then again, is aware of the place it’s headed from minute one.Proper from the start, it’s begging gamers to take a look at what they’ve, the world they inhabit, and the individuals who make their dwelling right here; the humanity that Sephiroth holds so low-cost and the chums so devoted to preserving all of it that they’re prepared to look the silver-haired, one-winged angel of demise in his smug fucking face and inform him that “sure, we’re going to battle you for all this.” And by then, gamers can have a deep, lovely foundation of experiences in life and like to again that up.

That brings us to the second.The second during which it nearly appears like Sq. would possibly spare us the ache of watching Aerith–now a personality a lot extra genuinely and fantastically written and executed than her 1997 counterpart–die in Cloud’s arms once more. However no. Regardless of some deft swordplay, Aerith is stabbed. The materia falls down the steps. The theme performs. And once more, many will weep. Because it seems, that is, to borrow one other multiverse’s parlance, a canon event. Even given how a lot Remake and Rebirth stray from the trail everyone knows, some issues are inevitable. Aerith dies within the Temple of Ancients each time.

However one thing’s totally different about Rebirth. By means of Cloud’s momentary give up to outright insanity and nihilism, we’ve seen simply how a lot of this universe is inevitable. However the magic of it’s this: you’re inspired to battle it anyway. Humanity–being a considering, feeling, emotional being–demands it. And the true distinction between Rebirth and the overwhelming majority of experiences is that every thing you’ve accomplished prior informs it.

This appears to be a operating motif in Sq.’s work within the FF collection of late, with XV and XVI each taking part in with the concept that, whereas wreck is inevitable each tiny interplay creates an unlimited tapestry of causes to avoid wasting the world anyway. Regardless of being confronted with demise repeatedly, Sq. has requested us to enjoy these peoples’ lives, in all their messy glory, as a result of all of it really issues. When demise comes–and it comes heavy in all these games–it has a face. Life, then again, has many. And the sacrifice of confronting the top of all issues means completely nothing with out seeing these faces first. In a very significant RPG narrative, that’s the reason the top of the world should be allowed to attend.

For Closing Fantasy VII, we have now spent actually real-world a long time ready for the chance to cease Aerith from going away, by no means actually accepting that our time along with her is brief. Rebirth’s nice energy is that it provides us extra of that. We now have on a regular basis on the planet to fall in love with the very act of being alive and respiration the best way she does, in order that when the top comes, there aren’t regrets.

When Aerith died in 1997, all Cloud might deal with was the loss–the issues we are able to by no means get again, the issues she’s going to by no means do once more.

When Aerith dies in 2024, Cloud swallows the sorrow, holds her hand, and tells her, “I acquired this.” And he lets her go to battle for the world she beloved.

When that battle is over, Cloud’s perspective undergoes a shift; straddling timelines, capable of see the void left by Aerith’s demise, however carrying her with him, or at the very least, a multiverse echo of her. However nonetheless. Cloud is aware of it isn’t her. He cannot immediately give Aerith again to his world, and he shall be uniquely geared up to share what he is aware of of her to get his associates via it. Our heroes mourn. However it’s so rather more vital that Rebirth exhibits they aren’t doing it alone, and that each one of them are higher for having recognized her.

And thus, Rebirth imparts its lesson. One of many hardest however most vital classes of the 12 months. We now have needed to let Aerith go for thus lengthy, many people forgot why it damage to start with. However Rebirth lets us bear in mind, and enjoy it, and at last settle for. We let her go, gladly, having fought, performed, and sung along with her in methods we by no means imagined again on PS1. There may be an artwork to accepting the top is coming. The Remake challenge altogether has been, above all else, an invite to look out on the horizon and, even realizing it has an finish, to enjoy what’s forward regardless.

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