Hi Sega Chief and participants of the forum.
I’m getting close to finish my third play through of Final Fantasy 7, which is kind of funny since I haven’t played this game in literal years
, this makes me really appreciate the power that mods have to revive your love for great games of the past.
To the point, I just remembered that Sega Chief mentioned the possibility of expanding Aerith’s role in the history if you decide to save her in the City of the Ancients, and I think there is a couple of good places where she could be given more relevance without harming the overall quality of the history:
1. The first place would be the “Mental recovery” of Cloud in Mideel, as it happens in the original history this event seems a little too convenient, almost a “Deux Ex Machina”, Tifa has no idea of how to help Cloud recover from his mako poisoning (in fact nobody in the party has any idea about how to help Cloud), Weapon attacks, the earth cracks open and totally by accident both Cloud and Tifa fall into pure life stream, (Something that up to this point in the history has been presented to be something very bad, leading to dead or permanent insanity) and without any explanation Tifa resist all the negative effects of the life stream, somehow enters Cloud’s mind and helps him put back his memories and personality back together.
I think Aerith could help here, instead of making it a happy accident, it could be an intentional calculated risk, when the party visit Cloud and Tifa in Mideel the second time, (After completing the Corel Train Mission) Aerith would tell Tifa that when she visited the City of the Ancients by herself, she listened the thoughts and memories left behind by the Cetra, and she came to understand the nature of the life stream a little better, due to this knowledge she thinks that maybe it could be possible to enter Cloud’s mind and repair it if the three of them enter the life stream together (Aerith because she could control the life stream to a degree, Cloud because she is the one in need of help, and Tifa because she was present during the Nibelheim incident and has the “Real memories” of that event, memories that are the key to repair Cloud´s persona), at this point Tifa will ask Aerith why she didn’t tell her this sooner, an Aerith will admit that is because she is really afraid of trying, as it’s is a very dangerous method and there is no way to know if it will actually work, if she is unable to keep the life stream in control the three of them will become permanently insane with mako poisoning, but after searching her feelings she came to the conclusion that she has to try, because she cares too much for Cloud and for Tifa, to just let Cloud remain an empty husk for the rest of his life, Tifa thanks Aerith for being willing to do this for her friends, and together the three enter a naturally occurring “Mako Hot spring” that in centuries past was used as “therapy bath” by the people of Mideel, but have been close since the negative effects of Mako in the mind and the body became known. The rest of the event plays out pretty much the same, Tifa manages to repair Cloud s memories and the three friends managed to get out of the mako bath exhausted but alive and well. The only change to the original progression of the story is that the town of Mideel won´t be destroyed by an earthquake, but I don´t think that is too drastic of a change.
2. The second place would be the Huge Materia missions, in the original history, the party decide to sabotage Shinra´s plan to gather Huge Materia and use it as a bomb to destroy Meteor, they explain that this is because Huge Materia contains ancient knowledge and thus is too valuable to be used as ammo, that is a fair reason enough, but considered how desperate the situation was, it makes our heroes seem a little petty, sabotaging a sincere attempt to save the world (that as far as they know, could have worked), just because they disagreed with the method.
Aerith could also help here, she could explain to the party that in the Temple of the Ancients, the Cetra spirits explained to her the terrible “true nature” of the Black Materia, meteor is not a simple big rock from outer space, it is a magical construct that will keep advancing and keep repairing itself as long as the one that summoned it keep exerting his will on it, (in fact in the original history even if you left the Huge Materia in the rocket, meteor “repairs” itself immediately after the rocket impacts on it) in fact, there is reason enough to believe that meteor is actually the “seed” of Jenova. This way the heroes have a much more solid motivation to stop Shinra’s plans, they know for a fact that that plan will fail, and will also waste precious resources that the planet will need to heal itself once the meteor crisis has been dealt with.
Well that’s is about it, sorry if it was too long, but what I love most about these Final Fantasy games is how they capture your imagination with their worlds and their histories, anyway, hope you decide to go ahead with the idea of giving Aerith more prominence in the history, I know you have the talent to make it great.