Never played the original, I don't understand the story in this game, it doesn't flow, feels like many things are cut from the story...

[Napoleonic S]

So in the beginning of the game, cloud is a merc hired by a terrorist group which is commiting terrorism to a megacorp that is supposedly poisoning the planet via the use of magical energy.

I can understand that, but everything else are confusing...

1. Seppiroth, who and what is he? An artificial human made by Shinra? (That's what I got from the game).
2. But then what is Jenova and what's the connection with Seppiroth?
3. why did we even fight such a thing (manifestation of fate?) by the end of the game instead of Shinra people?
4. What's exactly the connection between cloud and Seppiroth?
5. What's exactly the problem between cloud and Seppiroth?
6. What's the problem with Seppiroth and Shinra?
7. Why did Shinra kill Shinra president?
8. But then Shinra president's son simply didn't care for that? Why?
9. What are those Shinra people actually want throughout the game?
10. Shinra destroy its own infrastructure to blame the terrorists, but then just by sheet chance they found aerith which then turned out to be super important to them... WTF with this storyline?

I can continue this, in fact, I don't understand almost every new characters that randomly popped in when the game is about to end, including Yuffie and her group, who what are they etc, all aren't explained despite them being important for the sequel.

I really hope the sequel will handle the story better than this.

[Clumsy_Sage]

In the OG you didnt know who anyone was either until later. The first game in this trilogy only covers the first few hours of the OG one it just expands on stuff. So we had even less information back then. So you understand more than we did back then.

[Weltall8000]

1) Yes. And he turned on them. This is explained later. First section of the next installment (Rebirth) goes into this. Basically, in said section, Cloud lays out a whole lot of the set up for the whole FFVII story. This was kinda of the inciting incident of it. The original VII also did this, where they started you in Midgar and things are already happening.

2) That is explained later. At least some of it is Sephiroth was a human embryo injected with Jenova cells by a mad scientist affiliated with Shinra. After the Nibelheim Incident, Sephiroth is tossed into the Lifestream and floats around for a few years. His battered body winds up in the far north and he has gained knowledge and merged with Jenova's body and/or mind. It is unclear if Sephiroth is in control or if it is Jenova is, but, the end result is the Jenova cells out in the wild are trying to all go to the North as part of Reunion theory (these can be seen with the black robed weirdos mumbling, among others...) as they follow the call to return to Jenova.

3) We are fighting them both. You just ransacked Shinra Headquarters, the former president is dead and you just beat the ♥♥♥♥ out of the new president. With the fate, it is presenting as a threat to the party and is apparentlybeing used by Sephiroth, so, they fight it. There is more at play though. Some, we don't know yet.

4) Explained later. The very beginning of the next installment, Rebirth, goes right into that. They worked for Shinra and were on a particular mission together.

5) Sephiroth burned down Cloud's home town.

6) Sephiroth believes he is above humanity.

7) Good question. Might have been he didn't like him. Vendetta. Prove that he could do what he wants with impunity. Etc.

8) He wanted to succeed his father. He's power hungry.

9) Anyone in particular? But, generally for that group, greedy, want power.

10) They wanted to rebuild something bigger and distract from their own bad actions. It was a classic false flag operation to pin it all on terrorists and better control the population. Old man Shinra was sneaky. Rufus cares less about being overt about ruling through fear, but still, utilizes some subterfuge too.

On Aerith, Shinra has been following her for like her whole life. They knew where she was. They just have to get her under certain conditions. Which were met in Sector 7 Pillar drop operation.

Yuffie is from another country that was defeated by Shinra and has a strong resistance movement, of which she is a part of.

Some of it is "pay attention." Some of it is "you'll find out later."

[Derivat949]

At this point in the original game (Remake basically only covers the first 10 hours of the original) you'd have roughly the same level of knowledge, most of your questions will be answered just by playing.

[germality]

Originally posted by Derivat949:

At this point in the original game (Remake basically only covers the first 10 hours of the original) you'd have roughly the same level of knowledge, most of your questions will be answered just by playing.

This. There was a lot of mystery in the original game. Some of the Sephiroth stuff was actually put into the remake earlier than it was in the original. So, this is not the complete game yet. We don't get the full story because they decided to cut the original game up into pieces.

I think the only benefit us players will experience with the game being cut into pieces is that the gameplay can actually improve. Rebirth looks and sounds way better than the first cut. If they had done the entire remake in one go, it may have sucked a lot more. This first game is mostly bad with terrible pacing and really bad combat balance that makes no sense at all.

More of Sephiroth will come. I have not played Rebirth yet so I dunno which portion of the original game that one covers.

[Derivat949]

Originally posted by germality:

Originally posted by Derivat949:

At this point in the original game (Remake basically only covers the first 10 hours of the original) you'd have roughly the same level of knowledge, most of your questions will be answered just by playing.

This. There was a lot of mystery in the original game. Some of the Sephiroth stuff was actually put into the remake earlier than it was in the original. So, this is not the complete game yet. We don't get the full story because they decided to cut the original game up into pieces.

I think the only benefit us players will experience with the game being cut into pieces is that the gameplay can actually improve. Rebirth looks and sounds way better than the first cut. If they had done the entire remake in one go, it may have sucked a lot more. This first game is mostly bad with terrible pacing and really bad combat balance that makes no sense at all.

More of Sephiroth will come. I have not played Rebirth yet so I dunno which portion of the original game that one covers.

Rebirth covers everything up until the Forgotten Capital I believe, so roughly up until the 50-60% mark of the original

[Napoleonic S]

Originally posted by Weltall8000:

1) Yes. And he turned on them. This is explained later. First section of the next installment (Rebirth) goes into this. Basically, in said section, Cloud lays out a whole lot of the set up for the whole FFVII story. This was kinda of the inciting incident of it. The original VII also did this, where they started you in Midgar and things are already happening.

2) That is explained later. At least some of it is Sephiroth was a human embryo injected with Jenova cells by a mad scientist affiliated with Shinra. After the Nibelheim Incident, Sephiroth is tossed into the Lifestream and floats around for a few years. His battered body winds up in the far north and he has gained knowledge and merged with Jenova's body and/or mind. It is unclear if Sephiroth is in control or if it is Jenova is, but, the end result is the Jenova cells out in the wild are trying to all go to the North as part of Reunion theory (these can be seen with the black robed weirdos mumbling, among others...) as they follow the call to return to Jenova.

3) We are fighting them both. You just ransacked Shinra Headquarters, the former president is dead and you just beat the ♥♥♥♥ out of the new president. With the fate, it is presenting as a threat to the party and is apparentlybeing used by Sephiroth, so, they fight it. There is more at play though. Some, we don't know yet.

4) Explained later. The very beginning of the next installment, Rebirth, goes right into that. They worked for Shinra and were on a particular mission together.

5) Sephiroth burned down Cloud's home town.

6) Sephiroth believes he is above humanity.

7) Good question. Might have been he didn't like him. Vendetta. Prove that he could do what he wants with impunity. Etc.

8) He wanted to succeed his father. He's power hungry.

9) Anyone in particular? But, generally for that group, greedy, want power.

10) They wanted to rebuild something bigger and distract from their own bad actions. It was a classic false flag operation to pin it all on terrorists and better control the population. Old man Shinra was sneaky. Rufus cares less about being overt about ruling through fear, but still, utilizes some subterfuge too.

On Aerith, Shinra has been following her for like her whole life. They knew where she was. They just have to get her under certain conditions. Which were met in Sector 7 Pillar drop operation.

Yuffie is from another country that was defeated by Shinra and has a strong resistance movement, of which she is a part of.

Some of it is "pay attention." Some of it is "you'll find out later."

I missed some because I played the game with Japanese audio because I feel like the dialogues are just too non English in their nature as expected from a Japanese game with stories that have far more in common with anime than western fictions.

That being said, based on your response there are way too many things left for the sequel that make the story in this game incapable of standing on its own, it's IMO the exact opposite of what you should do when making a remake that aimed to bring new audience.

If this game doesn't come from such a legendary original game, I doubt people would be able to tolerate such confusing mess of a story (and it's characters).

[Weltall8000]

Originally posted by Napoleonic S:

Originally posted by Weltall8000:

1) Yes. And he turned on them. This is explained later. First section of the next installment (Rebirth) goes into this. Basically, in said section, Cloud lays out a whole lot of the set up for the whole FFVII story. This was kinda of the inciting incident of it. The original VII also did this, where they started you in Midgar and things are already happening.

2) That is explained later. At least some of it is Sephiroth was a human embryo injected with Jenova cells by a mad scientist affiliated with Shinra. After the Nibelheim Incident, Sephiroth is tossed into the Lifestream and floats around for a few years. His battered body winds up in the far north and he has gained knowledge and merged with Jenova's body and/or mind. It is unclear if Sephiroth is in control or if it is Jenova is, but, the end result is the Jenova cells out in the wild are trying to all go to the North as part of Reunion theory (these can be seen with the black robed weirdos mumbling, among others...) as they follow the call to return to Jenova.

3) We are fighting them both. You just ransacked Shinra Headquarters, the former president is dead and you just beat the ♥♥♥♥ out of the new president. With the fate, it is presenting as a threat to the party and is apparentlybeing used by Sephiroth, so, they fight it. There is more at play though. Some, we don't know yet.

4) Explained later. The very beginning of the next installment, Rebirth, goes right into that. They worked for Shinra and were on a particular mission together.

5) Sephiroth burned down Cloud's home town.

6) Sephiroth believes he is above humanity.

7) Good question. Might have been he didn't like him. Vendetta. Prove that he could do what he wants with impunity. Etc.

8) He wanted to succeed his father. He's power hungry.

9) Anyone in particular? But, generally for that group, greedy, want power.

10) They wanted to rebuild something bigger and distract from their own bad actions. It was a classic false flag operation to pin it all on terrorists and better control the population. Old man Shinra was sneaky. Rufus cares less about being overt about ruling through fear, but still, utilizes some subterfuge too.

On Aerith, Shinra has been following her for like her whole life. They knew where she was. They just have to get her under certain conditions. Which were met in Sector 7 Pillar drop operation.

Yuffie is from another country that was defeated by Shinra and has a strong resistance movement, of which she is a part of.

Some of it is "pay attention." Some of it is "you'll find out later."

I missed some because I played the game with Japanese audio because I feel like the dialogues are just too non English in their nature as expected from a Japanese game with stories that have far more in common with anime than western fictions.

That being said, based on your response there are way too many things left for the sequel that make the story in this game incapable of standing on its own, it's IMO the exact opposite of what you should do when making a remake that aimed to bring new audience.

If this game doesn't come from such a legendary original game, I doubt people would be able to tolerate such confusing mess of a story (and it's characters).

Like, the first half of your questions are essentially, "who's Sephiroth?" which, he is supposed to be an enigmatic character that is going to play a major role in the story going forward. Which is obvious. And here in Remake, he does have something going on that returning players do not fully understand yet.

The second half is, implicitly or explicitly answered in game already.

This isn't the game telling the story poorly.

[Dixon Sider]

The story of who and what Sepiroth is will unfold over time. Think of him as just a wild card at the moment. I think he will unveil himself slowly over the course of the second game. By the end of the second game I suspect he will be unveiled completely. The story told by the point at the end of this game is probably less than 5% of the total story. You having most of these questions is by design.

[Clumsy_Sage]

Originally posted by Dixon Sider:

The story of who and what Sepiroth is will unfold over time. Think of him as just a wild card at the moment. I think he will unveil himself slowly over the course of the second game. By the end of the second game I suspect he will be unveiled completely. The story told by the point at the end of this game is probably less than 5% of the total story. You having most of these questions is by design.

Be ready for a major information dump throughout the 2nd part.

[Dixon Sider]

Originally posted by Napoleonic S:

I played the game with Japanese audio because I feel like the dialogues are just too non English in their nature as expected from a Japanese game with stories that have far more in common with anime than western fictions.

I do the same thing. You have to keep your eyes on the tv/monitor though because its easy to miss stuff. Its a lot harder to do in video games than it is when watching an anime. But I prefer the lips to be in sync.

Originally posted by Napoleonic S:

That being said, based on your response there are way too many things left for the sequel that make the story in this game incapable of standing on its own, it's IMO the exact opposite of what you should do when making a remake that aimed to bring new audience.

I can see this being the case for someone who doesnt know the entire story yet. If you were to ask me what you should do as a person who never played the original, I would have suggested doing one of the following:

1) Wait until the story is all complete. These cliffhangers are likely to be difficult to wait for. Dont spoil things by using the internet too much (like you are doing now IMO). I am really trying hard not to even slightly hint at the future here for your sake.

2) Play the original. It is fantastic. It aged well, and very much deserves a playthrough.

It really wouldn't be fair to players to have them sit on these endings for years IMO. I wouldn't have the resolve to not look things up after the endings myself if I was in your shoes.

[Dixon Sider]

Originally posted by Napoleonic S:

If this game doesn't come from such a legendary original game, I doubt people would be able to tolerate such confusing mess of a story (and it's characters).

I think it is the opposite. I think the story would be much easier to take in piecemeal like it is currently being delivered, if the ending was not so easy to look up. If no one knew what happens in the third part, then we would be forced to wait lol.

[Pack 4 Potatoes]

Jenova is an alien. It came to Earth to feed on the lifestream. It was defeated, and, its corpse was found by Shinra who used some of its DNA to create super soldiers like Sephiroth.

Sephiroth is injured somewhere, but he is able to posses some of those guys who also have some of Jenova's cells in them. Those are the sickly looking guys in black cloaks that have numbers on their arms. When Sephiroth stops possessing them, you see he turns back into one of those guys in black cloaks.

Sephiroth was trying to free what was left of Jenova in Shinra's lab. He basically wants to merge with Jenova to become more powerful.

If you want to learn more about Sephiroth and Cloud's relationship, you should play Crisis Core Reunion.

The whole fate thing gets messy. Sephiroth knows he is destined to be stopped by the heroes. He basically tricked the heroes into destroying fate, so he could have a chance and altering the future.

As for the whole fate thing,

[Zeo]

Originally posted by Napoleonic S:

So in the beginning of the game, cloud is a merc hired by a terrorist group which is commiting terrorism to a megacorp that is supposedly poisoning the planet via the use of magical energy.

I can understand that, but everything else are confusing...

1. Seppiroth, who and what is he? An artificial human made by Shinra? (That's what I got from the game).
2. But then what is Jenova and what's the connection with Seppiroth?
3. why did we even fight such a thing (manifestation of fate?) by the end of the game instead of Shinra people?
4. What's exactly the connection between cloud and Seppiroth?
5. What's exactly the problem between cloud and Seppiroth?
6. What's the problem with Seppiroth and Shinra?
7. Why did Shinra kill Shinra president?
8. But then Shinra president's son simply didn't care for that? Why?
9. What are those Shinra people actually want throughout the game?
10. Shinra destroy its own infrastructure to blame the terrorists, but then just by sheet chance they found aerith which then turned out to be super important to them... WTF with this storyline?

I can continue this, in fact, I don't understand almost every new characters that randomly popped in when the game is about to end, including Yuffie and her group, who what are they etc, all aren't explained despite them being important for the sequel.

I really hope the sequel will handle the story better than this.

Hi I decided to play this one to see if I purchase the sequel, I'm a huge FF7 nerd lol as I played when it came on in the PSX.
My answer will contain HUGE spoilers, so read at your own risk, with that being said I will answer with my FF7 knowledge and I don't know what they will retcon.

1. he is a SOLDIER first class (top tier) and there's a huge difference between soldiers 7º class to first one (kinda like Goku in original DBZ vs Goku in Z), he is artificially made in a sense but he have a mother that gave birth to him;

2. Jenova is an alien being that came to the world, with superpowers, you will see her mutilated but she's still alive;

4. Cloud is a shallow experiment to create another Sephirot, Hojo wasn't really trying lol and only used him because he was there lol;

5. Sephirot wasn't aware of who Cloud really are until very late in the game, I know that they introduced him sooner to cut time, but if they really was at hurry they wouldn't waste time with pointless fetch quests and could focus more in the story, Cloud knows Sephirot from Zack's memories but he don't really have a real grudge with him neither, you end fighting against him because you don't want him to destroy the world;

6. When Sepphy discovered that he was engineered, he went emo mode and wanted to destroy the world;

7. villain rotation, previous president was just a money hungry without a real goal, Ruffus is more sharper and have knowledge about the Mako and the ancients;

9. money! But the foot soldiers don't know that mako = planet life source, most average joe working for Shinra actually are good people;

10. this was a retcon to make AVALANCHE seems less terrible and pin the city destruction on them, in the original the blame for destroy the reactor and a huge part of that sector is entirely yours, Cloud have a real motive to question Barret.

[Krypto]

1. Seppiroth, who and what is he? An artificial human made by Shinra? (That's what I got from the game).

He's a real human who was injected in the womb with Jenova cells (thought to be an Ancient, who is actually an alien)

2. But then what is Jenova and what's the connection with Seppiroth?

Jenova is an alien who influences Sephiroth when it sensed the time was right to "awaken" essentially.

3. why did we even fight such a thing (manifestation of fate?) by the end of the game instead of Shinra people?

That's an entirely new plot device for the remake trilogy. Nothing like that happened in the OG.

4. What's exactly the connection between cloud and Seppiroth?

Sephiroth burned down his village and murdered his mother. He also hurt Tifa, so you know, he has to die.

5. What's exactly the problem between cloud and Seppiroth?

See above answer.

6. What's the problem with Seppiroth and Shinra?

Shinra wants the Promised Land and Sephiroth's mission is to take the Promised Land for himself. Conflict of interest basically.

7. Why did Shinra kill Shinra president?

What?

8. But then Shinra president's son simply didn't care for that? Why?

Rufus doesn't have the same viewpoint as his father.

9. What are those Shinra people actually want throughout the game?

In short, to build a new Midgar called Neo Midgar in the Promised Land, where they can siphon limitless makor energy to feed their growing ambitions.

10. Shinra destroy its own infrastructure to blame the terrorists, but then just by sheet chance they found aerith which then turned out to be super important to them... WTF with this storyline?

They used the fall of the Sector 7 plate to capture Aerith by trading for Marlene. Hojo wants Aerith to breed with Red XIII and create some sort of weird Ancient lab rat dog (inside joke in the game) hybrid.

[MancSoulja]

Originally posted by Krypto:

1. Seppiroth, who and what is he? An artificial human made by Shinra? (That's what I got from the game).

He's a real human who was injected in the womb with Jenova cells (thought to be an Ancient, who is actually an alien)

2. But then what is Jenova and what's the connection with Seppiroth?

Jenova is an alien who influences Sephiroth when it sensed the time was right to "awaken" essentially.

3. why did we even fight such a thing (manifestation of fate?) by the end of the game instead of Shinra people?

That's an entirely new plot device for the remake trilogy. Nothing like that happened in the OG.

4. What's exactly the connection between cloud and Seppiroth?

Sephiroth burned down his village and murdered his mother. He also hurt Tifa, so you know, he has to die.

5. What's exactly the problem between cloud and Seppiroth?

See above answer.

6. What's the problem with Seppiroth and Shinra?

Shinra wants the Promised Land and Sephiroth's mission is to take the Promised Land for himself. Conflict of interest basically.

7. Why did Shinra kill Shinra president?

What?

8. But then Shinra president's son simply didn't care for that? Why?

Rufus doesn't have the same viewpoint as his father.

9. What are those Shinra people actually want throughout the game?

In short, to build a new Midgar called Neo Midgar in the Promised Land, where they can siphon limitless makor energy to feed their growing ambitions.

10. Shinra destroy its own infrastructure to blame the terrorists, but then just by sheet chance they found aerith which then turned out to be super important to them... WTF with this storyline?

They used the fall of the Sector 7 plate to capture Aerith by trading for Marlene. Hojo wants Aerith to breed with Red XIII and create some sort of weird Ancient lab rat dog (inside joke in the game) hybrid.

You got a few things wrong:

Sephiroth's mother is called Lucrecia Crescent, she was a researcher on the Jenova Project, and before that she worked for Vincent's father, she is the one who was injected with the Jenova cells, then Hojo had a baby with her.

Sephiroth didn't kill his mother either when Lucrecia finds out what she has been a part of she tried to commit suicide, but couldn't because the Jenova cells in her body make her invulnerable, so she runs away to the crystal cave where you find her in the OG game and she gives Vincent his last Limit Break, she eventually turns to crystal herself