Our Final Fantasy predictions came true!

We aren’t quite done with June just yet, but already we’ve seen some huge announcements regarding the future of Final Fantasy — and what I can confirm with absolute certainty is that we as Final Fantasy fans are eating very well!

Back in late May, I wrote a piece on what my predictions were for this combination of Final Fantasy Anniversaries and it’s definitely time for me to cash in because I was pretty damn close on more than I expected!

Final Fantasy XVI

Final Fantasy XVI 

I think this was probably the most guaranteed out of all of the games I originally included on my predictions list; we all knew the game was coming, Yoshi-P had mentioned numerous times that they were ready to show something, and it was approaching 2 years since its original reveal trailer. I was right on what the trailers showed us as well: footage that gave us a clearer look at what the gameplay was going to be like, more story info, and more characters, so I would say we definitely took a win on the FF XVI prediction. 

An area where I wasn’t as accurate though, was the release period; this one hurts, as well, because I even gave it my stamp of approval. I originally said that we would see FF XVI in Q2 (April, May, June) and I suppose if the game was to come out in June, then I would still be right, but when Square says “Summer 2023”, we’re more than likely looking at an August release window.

Crisis Core: Reunion

I’ll be completely honest, this wasn’t even on my radar, and here’s why: I was convinced that with the upcoming parts of Final Fantasy VII Remake, the story of Crisis Core would somehow be incorporated into one of, or maybe both, of these games. In the original FFVII we never really get to see too much of Zack — in fact, you can even miss out on this incredibly important origin story if you don’t revisit Shinra Mansion after Cloud’s dip into the Lifestream.

For that reason mainly, I really didn’t think we were going to be seeing a full Crisis Core remaster; additionally, with Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis I thought doubly so that we wouldn’t be seeing this, as the whole point of Ever Crisis was seemingly to be an episodic release of everything in the Final Fantasy VII compilation. 

I’m excited of course; Zack is a fantastic character and there are parts of the story which I absolutely love about this part of the compilation. The meeting and growing love between Zack and Aerith; seeing Sephiroth as the hero before his descent into madness; and, of course, Zack’s final stand. However, there are certain bits of this game that I’m not the biggest fan of — and I say this as someone who adores FFVII.

Genesis is not a character I’m excited to see again; same with Angeal. And while Crisis Core gave us some great bits of lore, it also gave us some really stupid bits as well: I was perfectly fine believing the Buster sword was passed down from Zack to Cloud and that was that; I did not need to know that it was some grandiose heirloom of another soldier. 

It has been stated that the game is more than just a remaster of the original game, despite how familiar the trailer made it look. Apparently, the game will go above and beyond the original. Hey, I’m an FFVII shill so of course, I will be playing the game when it comes out; it will be nice to revisit the story of Zack and hype me up as we move towards the next part of Remake, or, as it’s now known… 

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

I can’t quite believe it, but they actually gave us a trailer and a release window for the next game in the FFVII Remake trilogy — ah yes, I should also mention that they also confirmed that the story will span three games, although I think considering the original FFVII was across three discs, most of us guessed this was going to be the case. There are some thoughts I have about this, but we’ll get into that soon. 

In the prediction piece I wrote, I mentioned that I wasn’t confident we were actually going to see anything for this game just yet. Considering FFXVI was shown just a week before it, I thought that Square for sure wouldn’t want to steal any possible limelight from another one of their games. Never have I been so happy to be wrong — although I guess I was kind of right because I did add FFVII Rebirth to my list of predictions. 

While we did get a trailer, there was only so much I could pull from it and honestly, a lot of it left me with even more questions that I don’t think we’ll understand until the next trailer drops. I do think we’ll be playing from multiple perspectives, though, and if you saw the ending of FFVII Remake then you can probably pick up what I mean by that. 

I want to quickly talk about the game taking place over three games. My immediate thought is that while I’m happy with that and it’s what I guessed was going to happen, my only worry comes with the fact that we’ve just gotten through one of those 3 games, and that only got us out of Midgar — a 4-6 hour segment of the original game that made up just part of the original’s first disc. I just hope they won’t be cutting out some of the wacky stuff that FFVII was loved for during the portion of the game that Rebirth is going to cover.  

The original game’s disc 1 ended with the iconic scene at the Ancient City, and this is also where I believe the ending of Rebirth will take place. When it comes to the middle of a game — or just stories and trilogies in general — this is usually where we see our characters at their lowest; despair is most definitely coming at the end of this game.

So far, we’ve been set up to believe that we might be able to change the original game’s course of events — that we might just be able to save a certain someone. I don’t have any solid theories, but I’m almost certain that Rebirth is going to leave us with one hell of a sad cliffhanger.


So exciting times are ahead for Final Fantasy fans! What are you most looking forward to?

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Conor Evans
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