Summary
- FF7 Rebirth overuses Sephiroth, damaging the impact of his character.
- Some things are best left to the imagination to maintain mystery and grandeur.
- FF7 Remake Part 3 faces challenges in maintaining Sephiroth's impact and may need a transformative conclusion.
Rebirth's approach to expanding the story tries a lot of different things, some of which prove significantly more successful than others.
One change in approach that actually starts in FF7 Remake is an increased emphasis on Sephiroth. Despite looming large over the culture for decades now, Sephiroth had a generally minimal presence in the original game, acting as an often unseen shadow over the story that turned up in some memorable key sequences rather than a frequently recurring villain. FF7 Remake tosses in a fair share of extra appearances, an act that Rebirth follows with some additions of its own.
FF7 Rebirth Review: "A Beautiful Showcase Of A Timeless Story"
FF7 Rebirth is an exceptional return to the world of Gaia that leans heavily into its star-studded memorable cast and a classic-but-reimagined story,
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Overuses Sephiroth Yet Again
Some Things Are Best Left To The Imagination
It's not that surprising that the FF7 Remake trilogy is increasing Sephiroth's presence. After fracturing the story, there's probably some concern over releasing games where the main villain barely shows up. It's still not the right decision, however, and FF7 Rebirth proves once again that the less-is-more approach to Sephiroth that the original FF7 took remains a stronger choice than more maximal alternatives.
The FF7 Rebirth scene that best exemplifies this problem is probably the fight with Midgardsormr, a giant serpent that can be found when the party is first moving from the Grasslands to Junon. In the original game, the party could come across a slain serpent impaled on a spiked dead tree, an image that lent a terrifying sense of power to the idea of Sephiroth. It didn't need explaining, as whatever the mind could conjure up proved more evocative than a fight scene between Sephiroth and the beast likely would have.
FF7: The English Lyrics For Sephiroth’s Theme & What They Mean
Sephiroth's "One-Winged Angel" theme plays during the penultimate battle in Final Fantasy 7, and many fans still don't what the lyrics actually mean.
In FF7 Rebirth, however, the act is shown, and it plays out in a way that completely loses its mysterious grandeur. Sephiroth essentially flings the snake into the air in a ridiculously stylized manner, which arguably makes his threat feel less real rather than more. Subtlety isn't exactly FF7 Rebirth's strong suit, and it's essentially operating under the same misconception as every horror movie that shows the monster too much. With each appearance, Sephiroth loses more mystique and gains very little for it, even as the stakes escalate to bigger and bigger battles.
FF7 Remake Part 3 Has An Uphill Battle With Sephiroth
Maintaining The Climax's Impact Will Require Serious Work
FF7 Rebirth's climactic confrontation with Sephiroth feels genuinely grand, but it's also the second Sephiroth grand finale in the Remake trilogy, and the games are starting to run a risk of diminishing returns. The final Sephiroth showdown in the original FF7 is showstopping, and images of his final form and his absurd Super Nova attack are still burned into players' memories now. There's little doubt that FF7 Remake Part 3 will throw all of its production value at this fight, but after two exaggerated Sephiroth climaxes, whether it will have the same impact as before remains to be seen.
FF7 Rebirth's Biggest Changes Make The Ending Way Worse
FF7 Rebirth doesn't follow the original game to the letter, and this ends up being a major downgrade when it reaches its emotional climax.
One possibility is that FF7 Remake Part 3 could have a different final boss entirely, which would be a transformative conclusion to the threads about changing fate and parallel worlds that the games have built so far. It seems somewhat unlikely that the story will commit to a complete overhaul of events, but multiple possibilities could end up being threaded together, a concept that already has precedent in the trilogy. Like in FF7 Rebirth's approach to its ending, this could end up further damaging the impact of the moments that really matter, so it's also not much of a solution.
The best thing at this point would probably be for FF7 Remake Part 3 to simply ignore the mistakes of its predecessors and save Sephiroth for his big moments. This is just one part of a bigger shift that needs to happen, as the constant chaos of fun possibilities in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth needs to give way to a focused and comparatively sober path to a conclusion, but it might be the most important. Sephiroth needs to feel special, and although it might be too late to perfectly preserve that sentiment, it's not too late to salvage it.
