So I beat Final Fantasy VII Remake, and…

The game is a fucking double-agent. Amazingly, paradoxically, infuriatingly and life-givingly, the game somehow managed to string explosive plot material discreetly throughout its 40-hour story arc and then detonate all of it within the last hour.

My initial read on it was this: Intense disappointment. Intense. Brooding through the entire credits scene intense. Why did you do this? How could you? Some of that is still there. I don’t know what to do with it. But let’s look deeper.

What happens in the game’s final sequence is a portal opens to I don’t know where. We’re all standing around, staring at each other, and Aerith declares what’s on the other side, “freedom.” Terrifying, boundless freedom. That doesn’t make any sense. The thing is, it does, because it has to, and we just haven’t figured out how, yet. So, through the portal we go, and we are greeted by, essentially, the boss from Kingdom Hearts. And its Latin-named lackeys. And this boss is the god of fate. You kill fate. And then what happens?

Sephiroth is your next opponent. By this point, you are sufficiently diverted from the original telling of the story. You are fighting Sephiroth before you know who Sephiroth really even is in the original game. Is this the same game? Is it the same story? Less and less so. You defeat Sephiroth and then a number of things happen: You are transported to an outer realm, the Edge of Creation, as Sephiroth calls it, and he explains to you, most cryptically, “you have seven seconds.” What for? What the fuck?

You see Zack Fair survive his standoff with Shinra. This is new. There is a bag of snacks that flies in front of the screen showing the hero pup and Shinra mascot Stamp, but, get this, it’s a different fucking dog. Zack is alive, Stamp’s a different dog. We are dealing with a new story.

Biggs survives. This is not curbed storytelling anymore. Something is happening. But it’s been happening the whole time. The Whispers, dementor-like creatures, were not in the original game. Did you think they were just going to exist alongside the story and not alter it in any significant way? That’s stupid! Of course they’re there for a reason. But why? Consider their actions throughout the game. They block off the party at points, they move people at points. They do the following major things:
-They descend on Sector 7 and injure Jessie before Avalanche’s second reactor mission, which they didn’t do in the original. Also in the original, Cloud was invited on the mission from the start. In the remake, Cloud was, somewhat oddly, cast out from Avalanche and not invited on mission 2, until Jessie got hurt. Because of the whispers.
-They whisk Hojo away right after he remembers who Cloud is. In the original, Hojo and Cloud had no discussion of Cloud’s past at this point in the story. Cloud had his own version, which Hojo would later prove to be incorrect, that he tells everyone in the first plot event after the conclusion of the Remake’s arc. Hojo telling on Cloud’s true past in front of everyone this early would change the story’s trajectory considerably. Enter the whispers.
-They enable Barrett to survive a stabbing from Sephiroth, of the exact same nature that which kills President Shinra, who is not saved by the whispers. In the original, Barrett is not killed by Sephiroth, and Shinra is. Whispers made sure it stayed that way.

Do you see it? Did you see it all along? The Whispers are trying to keep the same story as the original. Timeline. The original timeline. We’re dealing with timelines. I know, I know: Jesus Christ.

There are three options at this point: Time-travel, parallel universe, or, still, enhanced re-telling of the original story. Are any of these OK? Let’s think:

Time-travel: No. This would suck ass. Sephiroth survived the end of Final Fantasy VII and went back in time to convince Cloud and co. to change fate? Fuck that. I killed that dude. I know I killed that dude. Did it twice. Omnislashed the shit out of him. That game is over. That would make this game a sequel, not a remake. Also, the point was made on Reddit that Sephiroth wouldn’t need Cloud and Aerith to destroy fate itself to change the past. He could just … let Aerith live.

Parallel universe: It’s a big-ass risk, but maybe. The thing I love about the parallel universe idea is that Aerith and Sephiroth both have some sort of insight into the existence of multiple timelines, and both are willing to alter the original timeline. They’re essentially raising the stakes and going all-in again. Aerith — who you’ll suddenly realize has been pointedly cryptic this entire time and has said a bunch of shady shit that hints at an extra channel of knowledge — is fighting for her own survival and perhaps a better fate for the planet. Sephiroth, meanwhile, lost, obviously, so he wants a re-do as well. The beautiful gem hidden in the notion of a parallel universe rendition is that it manages to actually preserve the original game. It sets a separate track for the Remake that doesn’t try to re-write, or write over the events of the original. In a parallel universe, Biggs and Wedge still died. Aerith still died. By preserving the original story, it gives the remake license to go in a completely different direction. That is freedom — profound and terrifying.

Enhanced re-telling: Cooler heads offer this explanation: Ain’t no getting off this train we on. It can only go where the rails take it. There is a practical explanation for everything. In the original, Aerith and Sephiroth obviously know more than other characters. While the events of the first two discs rage on, the real corporeal Sephiroth is in the North Crater, couched in the lifestream. Aerith has a connection to the lifestream as well, being the last surviving Cetra. The lifestream, where all knowledge of past and future lies, is what gives these two visions of the future. Sephiroth is disrupting fate, and the whispers are simply the planet’s immuno-response to a threat to the fate of the planet. There are visions of the original ending, the swirling pillars of flame as meteor approaches the planet, and Tifa says something to the effect of “we can’t let this happen.” Could it be that Sephiroth was manipulating Cloud and the others into destroying the whispers, as a jubilee on his unsuccessful fate? If this is the plan, why is everyone surviving? Wedge, Biggs, Zack — is Aerith next?

Any of these options are viable, but we’re definitely dealing with something bigger here. There are factors to consider: Is any of this what we wanted? Is Tetsuya Nomura going to fuck this up as bad as he did Kingdom Hearts 3? Square-Enix has squandered a good deal of trust on bad video games, but Final Fantasy VII Remake wasn’t one. Even if the ending is trying to do something I don’t approve of, that doesn’t outweigh the fact that the game is well-made and intensely engaging.

While the ending is dominating my thoughts, I look forward to decompressing and establishing my feelings more on the rest of the game. I still don’t know if I approve of what’s going on here. The jury is out, and the story, yes, the story of Final Fantasy VII, is incomplete. That idea alone is at once outrageous and thrilling.