Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s ending is more confusing because of Cloud

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the original Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.]

The original Final Fantasy 7 pulls off a brilliant, almost nasty narrative trick. Just as the game gives players the idea that its protagonist, Cloud Strife, is the game’s hero and overall cool guy, we learn that in reality the entire idea of ​​him that the game has shown us is based on a lie . Instead, Cloud allied himself with his comrade Zack Fair and cultivated a completely false version of himself based on someone else’s memories. For this reason, Cloud Strife is perhaps one of the least reliable narrators in literally all video games. And now the end of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth just adds a whole new layer.

Graphics: Julia Lee/Polygon | Source images: Square Enix

The end of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has confused me. Sure, I think I understand what happened, broadly speaking, but nothing seems all that coherent. It’s so bad that I honestly can’t even say for sure whether Aerith died permanently or not, simply because there’s some weird multi-world logic at play in the end.

I’ll still try to say what’s happening.

It looks like there are two worlds Rebirth. Firstly, we have the main world, where we play primarily as a cloud over time Final Fantasy 7 Remake And Rebirth. This world follows the story of the original Final Fantasy 7, more or less, meaning it follows a storyline where Zack Fair dies before the events of the game. Except New edition And Rebirth Also show us an alternate world where Zack survives the events Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7, while Aerith and Cloud only continue to live in a coma. At the end of RebirthAerith seemingly dies in the “main world”, although we don’t see it – but the game shows her friends, like Tifa and Yuffie, grieving her loss.

This is all confusing enough, but then it’s important to determine the basic events of what happened Rebirth gets even more confusing when we add another possible layer of complication: Cloud has never been a reliable narrator.

Image: Square Enix via Polygon

In the original Final Fantasy 7 and now in Rebirth, we see that Cloud’s storage is failing. In both games, Cloud tells a false version of the Nibelheim story, mistaking Zack Fair for himself. The entire opening chapter of Rebirth? It is a lie. Yes, Cloud was in Nibelheim at the time, but he was supporting the mission as a low-level strike force, not as a member of SOLDIER like Zack. Rebirth hints at this discrepancy when Tifa privately confronts Cloud about his retelling of the Nibelheim incident, but we haven’t seen Cloud unearth his entirely original memory yet.

Judging by the game’s already confusing ending – which seemingly connects multiverses and dreams – and taking into account the additional knowledge that Cloud has messed up his memories, it becomes almost impossible to tell what’s really in reality (or realities). of the game happens game. Some or all of this could literally be in Cloud’s fucking head. During Aerith’s apparent death scene, we see the screen alternate between scenes of Cloud successfully saving Aerith and scenes of Aerith dying. It could be some sort of multiverse event, or Cloud could simply be imagining that he saved Aerith. We just don’t know.

If there’s one clarifying factor, it’s Zack Fair.

Unlike Cloud, Zack appears confused as he is transported to a new world, but he appears to be in good health. His memories seem more or less intact and he immediately recognizes Cloud’s uncharacteristic behavior when the two worlds briefly collide during the final boss fight against Sephiroth. At the end of the game, Zack finds himself in the church where he met Aerith, where he says that everything he experienced felt “real” and that he didn’t think he was dreaming it. So when Zack says that he actually experienced some kind of multiverse jump, then – then maybe that’s not just Cloud’s imagination.