'Final Fantasy VII' Remake's Sephiroth Plot Twist Changes Everything We Knew

The most ballsy thing about the original Final Fantasy VII isn't a huge plot twist, but rather the absence of one. (Full disclaimer: Huge spoilers for the old-ass classic as well as for the very recent one.) There's no happy turn of events leading everything back to normal for the main characters and for their world. Aerith, the favorite character of Robert “The Batman” Pattinson and of most of the player base stays dead, a result that's especially hard to take in a magical world where everyone owns multiple phoenix-butt feathers capable of bringing people back to life. The ending of the story is so dire, in fact, that players have led others (and perhaps even themselves) to believe in the blatant lie that there's a secret way of bringing her back to life. The lies are no longer necessary. In the still ongoing timeline set in motion by the first part of the remake, Aerith is alive, and not because she gets revived – because she doesn't get killed at all.

For over 20 years, players had to contend with Aerith being dead. The closest they could get to have her back was glitching the game into getting access to a creepy debug room where a seemingly possessed Aerith either lets out a terrifying screech or just tells players that they're in hell. The remake, however, allows players to live inside a completely different fantasy. Yeah, it's weird that a remake would have a plot twist not present in the original game, but that's exactly what's going on here.

The remake isn't really a remake because its plot stems from the villain's awareness that he's living inside a remake – The whole game is a whole-ass plot twist. Square Enix could have done exactly what fans wanted for some quick (hundreds of millions of) bucks, but now Sephiroth is seemingly raging against the system, starting off by not killing Aerith at all (or yet, depending on possible fan backlash). Not including the game's big emotional selling-point moment was a very big gamble for the developers, but one that sure did translate in sales, critical acclaim, and one that may very well result in us seeing the supposed villain continuing in his path towards redemption.

Top Image: Square Enix