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Pt.2 I realized in my efforts to explain what FFVII is about I didn’t explain how the world works.

Okay so we’ve established that the planet is alive. Great. Well everything on the planet (Save Jenova, she’s an alien) is part of the planet. In this ever moving cycle of live and rebirth. Everything that lives and dies is a part of this cycle. So when a tree dies it returns to the planet, then that energy can go back and become something else.

However, whenever something returns to the planet the information of what it was is stored. So in the case of people, their memories and their being, so their soul.

Cloud Strife voice: Since the Lifestream is a physical thing that flows through the planet and keeps it alive, it can also take different forms. It can crystallize and keep information stored inside these crystals, this is materia! So people are able to cast magic because the information of that magic is stored inside the crystal. There’s many different kinds of materia that store different kinds of information inside of them. Take Summoning Materia, this stores the information of gods, so by using this materia you can summon a fragment of this god to aid you!

Aeris voice: So the Cetra were able to communicate with the planet via the many voices that exist within the Lifestream. This is a practice that was important to their culture and helped keep the planet healthy because the Cetra could manipulate the flow of the Lifestream. Like say something happened to the planet that injured it (like an alien crashing into it from the stars and forming a huge crater), they Cetra could divert energy to the wound to help the planet heal.

Barret voice: So when Shinra built their reactors and started sucking up Mako for power, this energy that was used to power cities couldn’t return back to the planet! Thus slowly taking up the energy the planet needed to survive, and the energy that would continue to create all new life on the planet. If the reactors kept going forever, the planet wouldn’t have any Lifestream left and would die, along with everything on her.

Back to Kellington voice: So Jenova, an alien, is unaffected by this cycle since she isn’t from this planet. In fact! She eats planets! Or more specifically, the Lifestream. Which is why Shinra was actually an enemy to her as well. If they used up all the Mako in the planet for power, there’s nothing left for her on this planet to consume. So Sephiroth was an enemy to the planet, but also an enemy to Shinra.

And that’s basically how the world works :)

okay quick question: what the fuck is ff7 actually like, about. what’s the goal? also why does everyone i see just look like a person who could potentially have something magic abt them and then there’s just an unironic talking cat. what are the rules in this universe? (i don’t need to know about all the other ff games unless it’s necessary setup, i’m mostly just curious abt the story of 7)

Starts vibrating. This is gonna get so long.

First things first I feel it necessary to clarify that no game in the mainline Final Fantasy series takes place in the same world. FFVII is a completely different world from say FFXIV and so on. Some games have sequels and spin offs, like FFVII having Crisis Core and (groan) Dirge of Cerberus, or FFX and FFX-2. But other than that, no relation between games.

Final Fantasy VII is a more sci-fi fantasy take on the FF series, keeping the themes of magic and adventure, but adding a dieselpunk/cyberpunk twist to it. Overall the main themes of FFVII is environmentalism and identity.

The characters are pretty consistent with the themes and designs of the entire FF franchise, it’s meant to be a little silly. So stuff like Moogles, Chocobo, talking cat, all falls under that silliness of FF.

Now the fucking story, there’s so much going on in this game. For simplicity (and personal preference) I will be ignoring the FFVII Compilation in favor of ONLY explaining the original 1997 game. There’s already so much going on, no need to complicate things.

The story of FFVII follows nine heroes who all have their own beef with the Shinra Electric Power Company, the company who rules over many cities and villages throughout the world by use of their private military. Over the roughly 40 years (iirc) the company has been around, they’ve committed several atrocities against humanity and the planet itself, which is a living thing in FFVII!! It’s very very important to note the planet it ALIVE!!

Shinra has several parts of the company that are important to the story, I won’t go over the company’s entire hierarchy, but there’s important parts of the company that I absolutely have to explain.

The R&D department is arguably the most antagonistic, led currently by Professor Hojo. The bitch is this prick who is over enthusiastic about human experimentation, eugenics being a motivator behind that (not as obviously as say Albert Wesker, but you cannot ignore Hojo is largely a eugenicist)

Then we have SOLDIER, Shinra’s super-soldiers created by Hojo. These guys are experimented on and enhanced with Mako, which is well put by Barret the “Lifeblood of the planet.” Among their ranks are Sephiroth, the most famous and powerful of the SOLDIERs, and (allegedly) Cloud Strife. Plus another guy, we’ll get to him.

Then there’s the Power Company part of this power company. Shinra built reactors that pump Mako out of the planet and convert it into energy. This process depletes the planet of Mako, a resource that IS finite and that the planet needs to survive. The company markets Mako as a clean and safe energy source, in a world that previously largely depended on coal mining. However Mako energy is anything but, where the reactors are built, the native flora and fauna eventually die out, and allows monsters to thrive. Plus, exposure to refined Mako is notably very dangerous to humans, as overexposure leads to “Mako poisoning” which meddles the mind and weakens the body. (So how do SOLDIERs work then? Great question! I’ll get to that!)

The story kicks off with a group in Shinra’s crowning accomplishment, the city of Midgar, called Avalanche. Avalanche is a group of “Ecoterrorists” who are set out to take Shinra down to save the planet. The group is led by our beloved Barret Wallace alongside a colorful cast of lovable characters, Jessie, Biggs, Wedge, and Tifa Lockhart! Plus, the newly hired ex-SOLDIER mercenary (and Tifa’s childhood friend), Cloud Strife.

The group conducts several missions to bomb the Mako reactors in Midgar, the first bombing going off without a hitch, the second mission… not so much. After one (really easy) boss fight, Cloud ends up falling off the upper city plate down into the under city, directly through the roof of a church where he meets our mysterious Aeris Gainsborough!! Aeris hires Cloud as a bodyguard (with the payment of one date with her), as she escapes Shinra’s Turks. I’d explain what the Turks do, but just know they’re all kinda John Wick types.

Now I’m gonna speed through the rest of the game since we’ve met all four of the most important protagonists.

The rest of the game kicks off after Aeris decides to help Cloud and Tifa after they learn Shinra plans on destroying part of the city just to take out Avalanche. During their mission to save the city, Aeris is kidnapped by Shinra. Reason being, Aeris is an Ancient (later clarified to actually be called Cetra), a people who were able to speak directly to the planet, and she’s the very last one at that. The mission fails and many innocent people are killed in the fallout, as well as the other members of Avalanche. After all Aeris did to help, including saving Barret’s daughter Marlene, our heroes are determined to save her. During their mission to save Aeris, it’s revealed that the long thought dead General Sephiroth is somehow still alive, a fact Cloud insists should be impossible.

After that, Cloud is determined to track down Sephiroth and take him down for good, as revenge for Sephiroth destroying Cloud and Tifa’s hometown, Nibelheim. All of our heroes agree to help Cloud pursue Sephiroth after learning what he did to Nibelheim. Along the way we meet lots of other characters.

Nanaki aka Red XIII, a funny little talking animal who was being held prisoner alongside Aeris, rescued at the same time she was. He agrees to follow the group until he can return to his home, as thanks for them rescuing him from Professor Hojo.

Yuffie Kisarsgi (my beloved daughter), a teenage ninja and thief from Wutai, who is on the hunt for Materia (magical gems that allow people to cast magic). She joins the group after she steals their materia and promptly is defeated, deciding she might have more opportunities to get materia if she doesn’t go it alone.

The journey continues as the group heads out to find Sephiroth. Their first encounter with him being on a boat to Costa del Sol. Where Sephiroth leaves behind a limb (I think an arm? I never remember which limb is which) of his “mother” Jenova, and flees by doing a backflip and flying away. This limb transforms into a large monster that then attacks the group. After she’s defeated, the quest to find Sephiroth continues.

They travel across the world, landing in all sorts of unique locations, all in search of Sephiroth and how to truly defeat him. We meet more guys.

Cait Sith (look up how to pronounce this in Scottish Gaelic, NOT English) is a little toy cat the group meets at the theme park the Gold Saucer. He receives a fortune that the group is in trouble and cue my favorite “joined the party” moment in any video game:

Vincent Valentine, an ex-Turk who reveals Jenova is not truly Sephiroth’s mother, but instead a woman named Lucrecia, whom he was in love with. Vincent was experimented on by Hojo and gained the ability to turn into monsters. He chose to sleep in a coffin for the rest of his life as atonement for not being able to stop Lucrecia from experimenting on herself and her son. After he learns Sephiroth is a threat to the planet, he joins the group to stop him.

Cid Highwind is a skilled pilot and SHOULD have been one of the first men to go to space, unfortunately one of his crew members put herself at risk during the spaceship’s launch and he chose to cancel the launch to save her. After that, Shinra defunded his space program which he resented them for. The group attempts to steal his plane before Shinra can and he joins them mainly because he wants to stick it to Shinra, plus they broke his plane and he needs to fix it.

That’s the whole gang! Finally, crazy how many playable characters there are in this game.

Eventually the group learns of the Black Materia, an extremely powerful weapon that was created by the Cetra (shhhh don’t listen to Rebirth they lied to you) as a result of them creating Holy, an equally powerful materia that was created to rid the world of Jenova, the Cetra’s greatest enemy. They continue on a quest to find the Black Materia before Sephiroth can use it to destroy the world. (It’s kinda a Fullmetal Alchemist equivalent exchange thing, to create the ultimate protective materia, the ultimate destructive materia had to be created in return)

All the while, Shinra pursues the group hoping Aeris will lead them to the “Promised Land” a land foretold by the Cetra to be a paradise (it’s the Cetra’s afterlife lmfao, Shinra’s stupid).

Upon finding the Black Materia, Sephiroth finally busts out his ability to control Cloud, forcing Cloud to hand over the materia to him. Aaaand now I can explain how SOLDIERs work. All SOLDIERs have Jenova’s cells in them, which is what allows them to survive Mako exposure AND is also how Cloud was able to keep finding Sephiroth! Jenova, and Sephiroth, can exert control over anyone with her cells and is currently trying to create a “Reunion”, drawing in everyone who contains Jenova’s cells so she can be whole again. Which is why Cloud is inexplicably drawn to following Sephiroth (hahahaha bitch fell for the classic thinking it’s about revenge but actually just being alien mind control).

Right after losing the Black Materia to Sephiroth, Aeris heads out on her own. The group manages to follow her to the lost city of the Cetra, where she attempts to summon Holy to defeat Jenova and Sephiroth.

The group arrives too late to rescue Aeris before Sephiroth arrives and kills her. Jenova appears once again and the group defeats her. They all mourn the loss of their beloved friend, then become reinvigorated to stop Sephiroth.

They go snowboarding literally immediately after this, funniest tonal shift of all time, as they head to the northern crater. They gets their hands back on the Black Materia before they make it to a cavern in which the REAL Sephiroth has been sealed this ENTIRE TIME!!!!

Cloud leaves the Black Materia with [enter ally of the player’s choice] so Sephiroth can’t take control of him to steal it back again.

Shinra also makes their way to this cavern, Professor Hojo then reveals that Cloud was never in SOLDIER, but instead is an experiment created by him, a “Sephiroth Clone”. Cloud is led to believe that he isn’t the real Cloud Strife, and only took on that appearance from Jenova’s ability to read minds (she can do so many things) and take the appearance of others based off memory, in this case, Tifa’s memory of her childhood friend. Cloud reacts super normally to this information (he has a meltdown). Sephiroth manages to trick [whoever the player left the Black Materia with] into bringing the Black Materia to Cloud. Who ONCE AGAIN is compelled to give it to Sephiroth.

Sephiroth is back for real now, and summons Meteor with the Black Materia. It’s a meteor, exactly what it sounds like.

Then literally so much happens. I can speedrun the disc three explanation sooo well. Cloud falls into the soup (the Lifestream, think of it like the veins of the planet) and goes missing. The group decides Cid’s in charge in his place since he’s a ship captain. Giant monsters emerge out of the plant, called Weapons (creative naming all around in this game, probably sounded cooler in Japanese). The Weapons were created as a defense mechanism of the planet against Jenova. But now they’re just kinda freaking out and blowing shit up.

Cloud is found completely unresponsive in a town called Mideel, Tifa elects to stay with him in hopes he’ll get better. The rest of the group heads forward on a mission to find the Huge Materia (literally just materia but big) before Shinra. Hoping maybe they’ll be able to use it to stop Meteor somehow.

Wacky adventures ensue. A weapon shows up in Mideel and causes an earthquake that opens up to the Lifestream, Cloud and Tifa both fall into the soup.

In the Lifestream, Tifa explores Cloud’s memories. She slowly tries to piece together the real story of what happened to Cloud, and to prove that he IS the real Cloud Strife.

We learn about Zack, an actual SOLDIER, who came to Nibelheim with Sephiroth before he destroyed the village. And how in Cloud’s memories, he placed himself in Zack’s shoes. (This is who Zack is and this is one of two parts of the entire game he shows up in)

As they go on and explore Cloud’s memories, they learn that he might never have been in SOLDIER, but he WAS in Nibelheim when it was destroyed, but as an infantryman, not a SOLDIER. He wore a helmet the entire time literally only because he was embarrassed about potentially running into Tifa (he was 16 back then, typical teenager behavior).

Cloud and Tifa wash up back in Mideel, found by their friends. This happens:

(Kidding, this is just the joke I made about this scene)

They go kill Sephiroth. Free Holy, which gets rid of Jenova once and for all and with the helpful of the Lifestream (again the planet is very alive) Meteor is stopped and the day is saved!! The only question that remains is, did Holy decide humanity was part of the threat to the planet? Do they remain after Meteor is stopped? It’s up to interpretation!!! We know Nanaki lived tho! He lived on for another 500 years!!!

Anyways that’s the gist of it, there’s like, way more. You would not believe how much story is packed into this game. And I loveeee it, it’s really good :) the characters are my everythings <3

#ophidian lore

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butchstrife · 1 day