9 Final Fantasy VII Remake Moments That Completely Change the Stakes of the Story

It's honestly poetic that we've only had to wait seven years to see the end of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy. It began in 2020, and we're currently on track to get the next part in 2027.

Some of you are probably finding it hard to wait for just under a year more. I'm planning to play through every game until Final Fantasy VII Revelation releases, so I've got ways to bide my time. I'd understand if you're sitting on the edge of your seat until next Spring, though. The Remake trilogy has hit us hard over the head, telling us things will be different, but never giving us any concrete answers as to how. There have been plenty of moments that have made everything happening on the planet Gaia, both old and new, hit harder than it ever has before.

We've got time, so why not look back at just how things are shaping up with me?

9 Cait Sith's Appearance When The Sector 7 Plate Drops

Is It Fan Service Anymore When It Hurts?

The moment the Sector 7 plate falls has always been a harrowing moment in Final Fantasy VII. It shows how far Shinra will go to try and keep Avalanche's resistance from overthrowing its control, and how even Cloud, Tifa, and Barret can't stop everything that comes their way. So many people lost their lives in the disaster, and it serves as a reminder of the darker consequences of their journey.

In Final Fantasy VII Remake, there was a small detail that served to highlight what this moment would mean going forward, too. As Sector 7 burns, Cait Sith arrives too late to help, left to look at the flames and devastation. For the fans who have stuck with the series, they'd know that this moment highlights the impact of Sector 7 outside of Avalanche's little circle and the rest of the trilogy going forward. If you didn't, you'd be wondering why a cat was here.

Back then, it delivered on a clear promise to tell the rest of the story outside Midgar. And boy, have they ever.

8 The Flashes of the Future

FF7 Remake Really Wants You to Know Things Won't Be the Same

A big part of the first Final Fantasy VII Remake game was the very drilling into our heads that things would be different that I mentioned earlier. Aerith seemed almost omniscient and Sephiroth was giving cryptic directions for Cloud to follow to manipulate the ending in his favor a full two games in advance. The involvement of the Whispers made this even more clear as they gave Cloud and company visions of the future. Cloud sees Aerith's death in the future and sheds a tear, and they also get an immersive preview of Meteor hitting Midgar and engulfing it in flames.

When I was making my way through Remake for the first time — as someone who has played the original, thank you — these parts were only just a little less confusing for me as they were for everyone else. But I think we all got the picture by the end of the game anyway. Red XIII spells it out for us in the final battle. These are visions "of tomorrow" if the party didn't win. Pretty much every vision in that section was from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, which puts AC in "bad ending" territory without outright saying it. We've been questioning if Advent Children follows the Remake trilogy ever since.

7 Dyne's Mental Breakdown

A Reminder of How Much He's Lost

Just like Cloud has Sephiroth, Barret's always had a foil to him in the form of Dyne. When you encounter Dyne in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth as Barret, he's locked up as Gus promised. Barret releases him as he treats the situation like he's at home, with his wife Eleanor and daughter Marlene. He even asks where Barret's girlfriend Myrna was, like nothing bad ever happened between them.

The trick is that it's all in his head. He hallucinates it, like he's dying of dehydration in the desert. It's clear he's lost his marbles ages ago and the sand had nothing to do with it. The encounter, and the boss fight after, is matched with a somber melody fitting the weight of Barret's guilt, confusion, and the entire tragedy.

Dyne had always been missing a few screws, but he was arguably much more lucid in the original. In that game, he tells Barret his reasoning and fights him head on. In Rebirth, it's a man taking out the emotions that have taken over his entire being on the friend he blames for it all. It's awful to watch and be a part of, and all you can think of is just how many other familiar situations Shinra has caused across the globe.

6 Cloud's Dream About Aerith

When We All Realized She Knew What Was Coming

Before Final Fantasy VII Remake reaches its climax, Cloud has a dream about Aerith. In this dream, Aerith confesses how grateful she is to have met Cloud. In the middle of this deep conversation, she holds his face and tells Cloud that he can't fall in love with her. She even adds that if he does, it isn't real.

To me, the fact that Aerith outright tells Cloud that he can't fall in love with her signals that she knows what's going on. That she knows what will happen to her in the future. The kicker is the insistence that it wouldn't be real. The intimacy this puts on display is paramount to the story, because it makes it clear that she understands the truth about Cloud. It's a truth I'm not going to say here if you're reading this and haven't played the original.

5 The Early Appearance of the Weapons

Fan Service With A Price

The weapons are both one of the coolest and "out there" parts of Final Fantasy VII. It makes sense to have guardians of the planet, but to have them be genuine mechas that appear out of nowhere is definitely a choice. But this obviously matters to a lot of fans, considering you guys have been debating how the new weapons look in the Final Fantasy VII Revelation trailer. I like the new look. It matches the art style of the Compilation Advent Children set up.

I'm getting a little off track. In the original game, you don't really know that the weapons exist until Sephiroth calls down Meteor. In Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, smaller weapons show up in the Corel and Gongaga mako reactors. On the one hand, this is great fan service for those who adore the concept of the weapons. On the other, their appearance only hammers one point home — the world you're actively exploring is dying with the implication that it's much worse off than it was before.

4 Zack Surviving

This Blew My Mind, But What Does It Mean?

It's going to be hard to top the emotions we all felt when we first made our way through Final Fantasy VII Remake. After years of knowing the tragic story behind Cloud and Zack, the game cuts to a world where, against all odds, Zack survives and takes Cloud to Midgar. The game hardly explained itself after, so for a while, I kept thinking that Zack was just plain not dead.

Now, we understand that it's different timeline shenanigans, or some other world, that just happens to be in the right position to assist Cloud and company on their journey to change fate itself. But it's still wild to think that Zack is helping Cloud out, even passively, while he doesn't even understand who Zack is to him yet.

3 Cloud Cutting Tifa Down in Gongaga

Emphasizing What it Truly Means to Be a Puppet

Even if you've only played the two Remake games so far, if you've been paying attention, you're probably aware of some strange connection between Cloud and Sephiroth. Cloud envisioning Sephiroth at the Gold Saucer, telling him to have fun while he can before Cloud agrees to the party's wishes to enjoy the venue should be a big enough indicator, at least.

It gets even worse in Gongaga. After one of his strange headaches, Cloud's whole demeanor shifts. He holds his sword similarly to Sephiroth, and even straight up stabs someone after towering up above them. Terrifying, if you know what it represents. Tifa tries to break him out of it, but Sephiroth reminds Cloud that Tifa "died" in Nibelheim, and Cloud cuts her down like Sephiroth did in the Mt. Nibel reactor. The only difference is Cloud doesn't physically hurt her, thankfully.

This is another one of the Remake trilogy's "if you know, you know" moments. Sephiroth turning Cloud on Tifa makes it clear just how far ahead Sephiroth's planning. It's a good thing Cloud snapped out of it, but while it was happening, it really made you question what would happen with future events if this was how far things were progressing already. Talk about nail-biting.

2 Zack's Little Intermission Segments

This is Bigger Than Just You

Like I mentioned before, the fact that Zack is still around at all is mind-boggling. After years of sitting with that fact between games, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth goes a step further and even starts out with not Cloud, but Zack Fair himself. Throughout Rebirth, you're given small in-between sections where you play as Zack and make your way through a different Sector 7 on the brink of a different end.

With Final Fantasy 7's narrative of saving the planet, Cloud's adventure has always been bigger than just himself and his friends. I feel like the inclusion of Zack and the multiple timelines does a great job at expanding that out even further than before. It's not just one world, but two, and that's at the very least. Just how many timelines or worlds are caught up in this? How many people are we going to save if we work together despite space and time?

1 Final Fantasy VII Rebirth's Fractured Ending

So is Aerith Dead or Not?!

After going the entire game wondering what would happen in the Forgotten Capital, the time came. Aerith was at the altar, Sephiroth descended, Cloud cried out in agony, and things weren't ever the same again.

Except things didn't change in the way we were used to at all. Suddenly, there were flickers of two different scenarios, one where Aerith was okay, and another where she wasn't. The party can feel her presence, and Cloud sees a huge crack in the sky with Aerith right beside him, but there's no clear answers to be found here at all. To this day, players have different ideas of what's happening based on their own interpretations.

This confusion is the point. Did we save Aerith after all these years? Is Cloud lying to himself this deeply, and we can see it for ourselves this time? We'll find out in FF7 Revelation, and it might hit us harder than any of us were expecting after the seven years it took to get there.