Okay here's my thoughts after watching someone finish the rest of FF7Rebirth because [[Thoughts on Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth|there's no way i'm finishing it myself]]. The ending also sucks, but it took longer for me to sus out why I felt that way than I did about the game's design decisions - those were easy to describe as bad because they suck the joy out of the moment-to-moment experience. I'm not going to get into the details of the ending because it's easier to watch than it is to explain. So go watch it somewhere, or finish the game yourself. Anyways, I've seen people say the ending is "confusing." I don't necessarily think so, but that's because there's a difference between being confused by narrative and being confused by literally everything else. The latter is how I feel with regards to *Rebirth*. I get the point of the ending. It's to establish doubt, and not commit to a particular plot point, so we can all speculate for the next 4 years. Except I'm not going to do that like I did with *Remake*. This is because the lack of commitment of a direction to take *Rebirth*'s narrative 66% into a trilogy is baffling and frankly embarrassing. [[2020-04-15-final-fantasy-vii-remake-and-the-battle-against-entropy|I once compared my excitement for the unknown in Remake's end-game as similar to Kingdom Hearts 2]]. *Reibrth* feels like we're reaching *Kingdom Hearts 3* territory. (That's the bad one for anyone who hasn't played it.~) *Rebirth* should have been, in my opinion, the game that communicates what the dev team is envisioning for the new FF7 trilogy. But this is what I mean by being confused by everything else outside of the ending. The marketing of the game tells us we're getting an "unknown journey," that we'll "defy fate together," but then we get side-swiped by a dev team that tells us this trilogy is going to lead to *Advent Children* no matter what?? I don't fucking believe this btw, I don't care if Kitase said it. I have to believe this isn't true after seeing the way *Rebirth* ends because it would only make all of this even dumber. So when it gets down to it there are three angles here: 1. A marketing drive that tells us that we should expect the unexpected, defy destiny in *Rebirth*, and experience a world of "boundless, terrifying freedom" after finishing *Remake*. 2. Developers that insist this isn't an unknown journey whatsoever and that we're heading towards *Advent Children* despite adding in a bunch of multiverse nonsense with *Rebirth*. 3. And worst of all, a game that's not committed to giving us an "unknown journey" **or** a faithful remake, subsequently completely dropping the ball on one of the most iconic Final Fantasy scenes, if not *videogame scenes* in history. And for what? So we can keep kicking this convoluted can down the road? So we can get all the information presented to us Keyblade Graveyard-style, shoving the point in the last 10% of the game? Again? Not like this, SQEX. This *can't* be all according to keikaku.[^1] Who wins here? The people who wanted a 1:1 remake of FF7 don't. But I'm not in that camp! I wanted the big split, the divergence, the reimagining. But I don't win either! Because the dev team keeps telling us that all these new mysterious don't actually fucking mean anything!! With *Remake*, we got to talk about the stakes of the plot. But with *Rebirth*, what is there to talk about? I didn't even describe the ending to y'all in this post because there's no fucking point. The ending exists to be a conversation piece while we wait for the next four years, but I'm not falling for that shit. The ball has been dropped so hard that we now have to talk about anything but the game I wasted $70 on. We have to pour over interviews from Kitase and Nomura that contradict each other, a 7/10 movie that came out almost 20 years ago, about the precedent SQEX has set with other games, and on and on and on. We aren't going to talk about the ending for the next four years. At least I'm not. These next four years are going to be me simmering over the fact that SQEX *wants* me to talk about the game for the next four years. When it comes down to it, the most disappointing thing about *Rebirth* isn't the open world bloat or the trashy mini-games. It's the fact that we had a perfectly good and simple (and clean) fate-defying story. But as usual, SQEX is overshooting, and I'm almost certain it's about to land in the rough. [^1]: You thought you'd find a joke here huh? You're out of luck. Keep reading.