FF7r continues to be brilliant

Like, the first game is apparently up through Midgar, expanded to fit and I can’t tell what’s new or just newly done well enough to matter, but it is just full of themes of parents and children and comrades and just the spirit of loss hanging over everything

Aerith in particular is amazing, a new type that later scholars will connect to the MPDG and the yandere, and she’s vocally aware that she’s an impermanent thing and her time is limited

The collapse of the Sector 7 plate is set up as a foreshadowing parallel - if you have previous exposure you know what’s happening, it’s loss and failure, with the built-up Cloud/Jesse ship as a loss, but at this point there’s been just enough divergence from the “real“ timeline you wonder until the end whether it’ll really happen

This time though Wedge survives (meanwhile obviously, in the original this sequence did not expect players to appreciate Aerith’s later fate)

The remake is aware the payload of FF7 is the Cloud/Tifa/Aerith triangle, it’s striking how marginal even Sephiroth is

So as it reaches a peak, this installment is whispering in your ear

Hey Aerith’s so great, she’s really a dream girl, but she’s telling you not to fall in love with her because her time is limited, it’s 2020, you know we’re going to kill her…

…right?

And oh my God, that’s the obvious-in-retrospect angle a compelling multi-game FF7 remake would have to take, and it’s brilliant