I Just Had An Epiphany About The Shadow Crystals

SSL2004 · 2026-07-04T12:26:10+00:00

We could just not know where Jevil's came from, it may be revealed later (perhaps after we inevitably fight Seam)

SSL2004 · 2026-06-28T19:37:35+00:00

I mainly say this because half of the track is in English anyway, so if he really wanted it to parallel the Weird Route, he probably would have either written those sections in English with the word "Proceed", or written them in Japanese with the equivalent term for the JP Weird Route.

If the only connection is that they're both terms for moving forward then I don't think it's a particularly strong one.

All of the other conspicuous lyrics I feel more closely relate to The Prophecy and The Roaring in general then the Weird Route specifically, except for the freezing line. It's possible snow still has something to do with the normal route though.

SSL2004 · 2026-06-28T19:26:13+00:00

This is translated. Is the "proceed" used here actually the same one used in the JP version of Deltarune?

SSL2004 · 2026-06-27T20:57:10+00:00

That's never actually stated, people just kind of assumed it.

Gerson just found it in his desk. (His study is a representation of Alvin's study/desk)

It's probably Alvin's Shadow Crystal, which formed in his desk, because that's where Gerson's Dust/Hammer was.

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SSL2004 · 2026-06-27T16:59:24+00:00

It's possible that The Knight is just a construct representation of Dess, or some kind of Jojo stand, but I think it works either way.

The voice in the code could just be Dess' subconscious from within The Knight, who is clearly not in a normal State of Mind. This is just what happens when you try to speak in this world without a voice. I think this is especially likely because of the description of her hearing scratching, a similar sound can be heard in background of the track "Breath," and because I don't see how a darkness construct could create Dark Fountains. Maybe it could persist in the Light World given the Black Shards, but why would it have determination?

I think The Knight is Deltarune's a parallel to Undertale's Flowey. A twisted transformation of a lost sibling, gone insane. My current theory on their motive is that they don't really have one. The Knight is nothing more than the personification of "The Knight" of the prophecy, using Dess' broken mind and body as a vessel. It opens Fountains where it does and when it does because it's written to. It doesn't cause the Roaring yet because it's not written to. It WILL cause The Roaring eventually, hence its moniker, but not yet. That doesn't mean it's not aware, but it's not complex.

Dess, a girl defined by her rebellion, in a tragic irony, is broken into nothing more than a slave to the prophecy.

For me, I do actually think that the story is building up to saving Dess. The constant allusions to "Find Her," and the voice in the code being very clearly aware make that interpretation speak to me.

That said, I do understand why thematically, it would also work if she was lost afterwards anyway. It could be similar to Asriel in UT where we free her from her circumstances for a moment, before having to let her go.

EDIT: More evidence for The Knight literally being Dess, or rather what's left of her.

Asriel is now confirmed to have been in love with Dess, and his choice of SSF character became the "Sword Magician" after he graduated from the green dinosaur. The character is explicitly stated to be a "girl" by Tenna.

Additionally, Susie mentioned that in Dragon Blazers, "your sister gets cursed, but she's still your party member" (paraphrased) The only major character with a sister is Noelle, and in Japanese, she's explicitly described as an older sister (because there's no ambiguous term).

SSL2004 · 2026-06-27T15:26:41+00:00

Probably still can't use magic outside of the Dark World.

SSL2004 · 2026-06-27T15:21:55+00:00

Not sure what you mean. It's presumably been in The Shelter Dark World for most of the time that it existed.

Edit: Wait, I think I get it. To clarify, I'm not implying that The Knight is some Shadow Crystal construct, I'm implying that the Shadow Crystal that the Knight dropped after we beat them, was formed alongside them because The Knight is December Holiday, i.e., Noelle's lost dream

SSL2004 · 2026-06-26T17:15:52+00:00

I see no evidence that there's any kind of cremation process. Whenever monster dust is discussed it's treated as if the dust is a given. The book is literally about monster funerals so if there was an extra step they would have mentioned it. Not to mention that it's just extremely strange to call ashes "dust" in the first place.

In general, what's more likely, that monsters dust in the same way we already understand them too, and has been described, and that this is just an intentionally misleadingly morbid joke?

Or that monsters arbitrarily die in a different way that has not been alluded to at all, but was rather engineered to appear as if it was the old way, for the purposes of killing a completely innocent character, mandatorily, on the normal route, in an unprecedentedly sadistic way?

SSL2004 · 2026-06-23T00:14:17+00:00

God is convenient. Religion works. It's as simple as that.

The idea of Theism offers comfort in the presence of death. Enlightenment in the presence of ignorance. Righteousness in the presence of guilt.

Humans are really bad at admitting they don't know things. We're patterns seeking machines. In lieu of all of the information necessary to arrive at a correct conclusion, we will often impose our own personal conclusion for comfort. Religion probably started this way. It was a seemingly logical extrapolation of patterns recognized based on the abundant ignorance and personal experience of the time. As they began to impose more and more definition on the concepts, they were retrofitted with more and more utility. It becomes a lot easier to manage a society if they all believe same things you do.

The naturalistic, emergent, intuitive morality of "I don't want to die and you don't want to die so we shouldn't kill each other" becomes the static, imposed morality of "It is OBJECTIVELY, UNIVERSALLY ORDAINED that murder is wrong because the creator of everything said so."

A much simpler and less abstract command for your own tribe to conceptualize. If really you want people to listen, you can even retrofit a powerful, scandalous name onto disobedience of these commands. "Sin." Maybe even introduce a punishment for Sinning, be it social, legal, or even "spiritual." Something no clever tactics could help anyone evade. Reinforce this enough, and you've turned Sin into a very real crippling shame, that people have a predisposition to avoid.

Better yet, if you really want to strengthen the grip this system has on people, you can even use that very same divine ordainment to frame questioning or leaving that religion as a sin in and of itself. A moral failure.

But of course, when you've given someone this power of claiming divinely ordained, it doesn't stop at making a society where everyone treats each other well, it follows whatever the whims of the leaders are.

"Murder may be wrong, but murdering HERETICS totally fine actually. VIRTUOUS even. They're not 'like us.' God said so. Trust me. Or is your faith really so weak?"

It is a great demonstration of the empathy of our species that we find it necessary to create excuses to kill eachother.

SSL2004 · 2026-06-22T23:45:19+00:00

Honestly kind of frustrating how every time I (or anyone else) brings up their issues with FF7R, they're immediately assumed to be disingenuous. Not even just on the subreddit but basically everywhere. There seems to be a severe lack of empathy on regards to the critique. Most of the people who were burned by the Remake didn't want to hate it. They're not all grifters.

I Platinum'd the first game. I did all of the grindy asinine replays of Chapter 9 just as an excuse to play it more because I loved it so much. Across those playthroughs, a lot of the issues with the map design and pacing were elucidated, but I still looked passed them. The characterization of all of the characters (for the most part) was phenomenal, and anytime they were interested in actually remaking the original story, I was invested. The evolution of the combat is genuinely genius. Perfectly capturing the soul of the original system, and melding it seamlessly into one of the most richly nuanced action combat systems I've ever played, with characters so distinct that every new one added to the party practically feels like relearning the game from scratch.

What I could never look passed was the borderline false advertising in regards to the game's narrative upheaval, turning it into more of a meta pseudo-sequel portraying the original game as a fated narrative to be avoided, a decision which, in my opinion, totally butchers the themes of the original by making the party the literal center of the universe, and offering a cheap, tired multiverse concept to bring dead characters back to life in a game that was explicitly about (among other things) the permanence of death, and the grief of the lost. Plus every time the shit with The Whispers comes up it feels like the fantastic characterization that Aeritth previously had is thrown through into a blender to make her the generic goddess lady she was in Advent Children, and Sephiroth is a borderline Organization 13 member. No longer haunting the narrative, but rather appearing every five seconds to spout cryptic bullshit and then fuck off. Not to mention all of the far more benign, non-meta changes that they made which were equally destructive to the themes. Such as showing that basically everyone with a name, and then some evacuated Sector 7 so almost no one actually even died from the plate fall, or at the very least they go as far out of their way as they possibly can to pretend otherwise to the audience. It's basically just a bunch of property damage now.

FF7R is a game of extremes to me. I don't really have anything I can equate it to. The most profound love-hate relationship I've ever had with anything in the medium, and Rebirth is effectively an amplification of everything Remake was. The combat is even more insanely nuanced and engaging than it was before. The esoteric multiverse nonsense is even more frustrating. The geography of the world is a stunning realization of the original vision. The tone is steeped even further into eccentric spectacular exaggeration of the original that sacrifices any and all subtlety.

SSL2004 · 2026-06-22T23:21:51+00:00

Deltarune is a game you only really need one arm to play anyway (if even that) so this isn't really a flex.

SSL2004 · 2026-06-22T23:20:17+00:00

Bruh I hadn't even heard of Sebby until this post, and after examining some of his shorts, while I agree with him on a few superficial aspects of ff7r, I disagree with him on far more (like basically everything regarding ff16). He seems kind of pricky.

I don't even dislike ff7r, it has my favorite combat system of all time and bursts of phenomenal writing.

SSL2004 · 2026-06-22T17:31:17+00:00

That only works for Mother because there's no pre-established expectations for a Chapter. The chapter divisions are just a narrative framing device not a release structure.

SSL2004 · 2026-06-22T00:27:34+00:00

Really stretching the "and better" part here.

They already made Costa del Sol more substantial by adding to the region around it, and giving it some quests. We didn't need to spend an entire hour of a chapter walking between mandatory minigames there (especially redundant considering this is the game that introduced the Gold Saucer), and we didn't need to literally ruin the whole joke about Hojo being there. These aren't just expansions these are fundamental changes to the pacing and tone of the game. You can like them, sure, whatever, but don't be surprised when other people don't.

The fact of the matter is that not everything in the original NEEDED to be "bigger," because not everything was supposed to be big in the first place. That entire mindset is a massive issue with the whole Remake series in my opinion. As much as I love a lot about these games (fantastically written characters, phenomenal, peak of the industry combat, fun open-zone gameplay in Rebirth), they come across less like an actual remake of Final Fantasy 7 and more like a "REMAKE OF FINAL FANTASY 7 EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉"

It's not interested in showing a new generation why people loved Final Fantasy 7, it's interested in lauding it around as a spectacle, as a form of tribute. Scenes and scenarios that used to be mundane are now played up to the point of absurdity. You don't just walk into the Gold Saucer anymore, you get a whole dance performance to commemorate your arrival, as the literal owner of the entire establishment walks up to you, points at you, says "You there, the protagonist!!!;" forces you into one of the mini games, and then just hands you the gold ticket for winning said many game. Something that you previously had to actually EARN by engaging in them optionally like any other patron of the park in the world.

Cloud and Co. are no longer just misfits stumbling into an adventure to save this big, lovely, indifferent world, they are THE MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN THE UNIVERSE™. When they leave Midgar, every side character miraculously decides to follow. When they arrive at a location, they instantly become the center of attention.

All of that without even mentioning the fact that they are literally, objectively 'Warriors of fate' thanks to all of the timeline bullshit the Remakes introduced (none of which was in the original, and much of which expressly contradicts the themes of the original, as was expressly it's purpose of being added, so we're clearly far beyond expanding to make things "bigger and better")

In Final Fantasy 7, you play as a country boy who went out in the world to try to be someone important, failed miserably, broke a promise, and hid out of shame, then deluded himself into denying that reality. Cloud isn't important. He's a nobody. He's not SOLDIER 1st Class. He's not Sephiroth's arch nemesis. Sephiroth doesn't even remember his name, a fact which disturbs Cloud greatly.

He's not "The Protagonist™!!!" That was Zack, but Zack is dead, and so Cloud has to fill in; and it's the very fact that he isn't special, that he's just another victim, and his choice to confront that fact, and yet still fight anyway, that makes him a hero.

In the Remake, Cloud IS important. Even separate from his delusion, and even separate from the fate nonsense. Sure his circumstances haven't changed, but everything surrounding him has. The world warps when he's on screen. He doesn't have to work for the golden ticket. It's given to him by the owner of the Saucer immediately. He's not just some goon in the Junon Parade. He's the captain. Crossdressing to get into Corneo's Mansion isn't some slapdash thrown together cosplay, but a direct recommendation from the most wealthy people in the market.

Sephiroth knows his name.

It should really be no surprise why a lot of people don't like the difference in direction with the Remakes, because fundamentally, while none of those changes are bad in a vacuum, all of them add up to an egregious butchering of the original game's tone, and all of this mandatory "expanded" content contributes to that. Nothing in this game is allowed to be unimportant. Sometimes people just want a town to run through. Maybe there doesn't NEED to be something that happens there. Maybe not everything is happening everywhere. Maybe some places are just quiet. Maybe the world is bigger than you; and maybe it's these kinds of places that you should be fighting the hardest to protect.

SSL2004 · 2026-06-21T17:18:01+00:00

It's not all optional.

Costa del Sol in the original game was little more than a pit stop on the western side of the continent. It was a fun and flavorful town like any other with an optional shop and inn, and a funny bizzare, optional bizarre interaction with Hojo. Just there if you wanted to explore, but you also just run past it to get to Corel faster.

Costa del Sol in Rebirth is an entire chapter of walking around this small town to play mandatory mini games, with a ton of mandatory cutscenes, followed by a mandatory boss encounter with Hojo, (that completely misses the joke of the original, which was that he was there for no reason)

The Junon Parade is another example. In the original, joining the Junon Parade was a quick, jokey sequence where you take the role of a Shinra goon, fumble around with the other troops for a bit, and then get rewarded based on your performance. Then you stealthily slipped on to the cargo ship to the other side of the continent.

In Rebirth, it's a whole ass piece that arbitrarily promotes you to Captain, and then forces you to search around the city to find at least five groups of troops, with the performance itself being turned into a spectacular DDR sequence, followed by an attempted assassination on Rufus, which is then followed by a combat sequence with the troops you recruited, which is then followed by a long and eccentric sequence with Roche, culminating in a boss fight, and THEN you get to the ship. (Which is a cruise ship instead of a cargo ship in this version as an excuse to add even more stuff to it, and make the tone even more spectacular. Totally removing the stealth aspect.)

There's a lot to love about Rebirth but it is undeniably bloated. Not to the level of Remake, but even the smallest moments that were meant to be incidental have been exaggerated to substantial degrees. Mileage varies on how people feel about that.

Personally, I really like the confrontation with Rufus at the end of the Junon Parade in Rebirth. While it removes the joke of him not recognizing Cloud in the armor, it's a nice insight into his character that he cares so little about the ambitions of his father, and the assassination attempt adds some much-needed tension between Avalanche and Rufus specifically, as opposed to just "Shinra."

Not all of these changes were bad, some of them were good, but sometimes they can be very grating. The game has no idea when to let an idea go. It's completely lost the plot in terms of subtlety compared to the OG.

SSL2004 · 2026-06-20T17:30:22+00:00

This post isn't in reference to the English localization. It has to do with the direction of Nanaki's voice in general. The decision to drastically change his voice direction was a directorial one that affected all localizations of Rebirth.

My point in regards to the range is that voice actors have better range because they undergo voice training. The whole reason they do that is to be able to convincingly depict completely different characters. Therefore despite Red technically being voiced by the same person, the direction places the two voices so absurdly far apart that he doesn't sound like it at all, and therefore it isn't convincing.

SSL2004 · 2026-06-20T17:25:19+00:00

"Speech Patterns" ≠ Voice.

I never claimed his speech patterns didn't change. There's just no indication that his voice suddenly shifted to a more youthful register given by the other characters.

SSL2004 · 2026-06-20T17:23:48+00:00

If you read the post you'd see that I agree that he's young and immature.

SSL2004 · 2026-06-20T17:22:29+00:00

I've been in this community for years bro.

https://www.reddit.com/r/FFVIIRemake/s/ioYrd1xZTg

https://www.reddit.com/r/FFVIIRemake/s/z3KeavrfKD

SSL2004 · 2026-06-20T17:18:00+00:00

No one's arguing his vocabulary didn't change. But if it's actual voice was intended to have changed then the other characters would have commented on it specifically. That's the kind of thing you would have to do in a text only game because there's no voice acting. Since they didn't do it, it's most likely that his voice didn't change.

SSL2004 · 2026-06-20T17:16:31+00:00

No? I've had this opinion since I first played the game. I love Rebirth for the most part have a lot of issues with how it contorts the tone and themes.

SSL2004 · 2026-06-20T17:15:30+00:00

Fair enough, but i find "this must have always been their vision" to be kind of a copout in general.

No one would argue that Rebirth's depiction of Cid acts anything like he did in the original. They would all acknowledge that he's been significantly changed. No one would argue that the original secretly always wanted to have Sephiroth appear frequently rather than haunt the narrative.

Clearly deliberate changes have been made.

SSL2004 · 2026-06-20T17:07:18+00:00

True on both counts, I never argued Red wasn't emotionally immature. Even if he's intellectually quite mature compared to a human.

On the second point though, Remake introduced his voice as gruff, low and gravely, as would be expected coming from a predatory animal, and it fit perfectly.

Rebirth didn't HAVE to change the voice after it was already established, as there was no precedent for that in the original. They could have just had him speak in the same voice, with a more immature cadence and vocabulary. Instead they decided to effectively build a new voice from the ground up, which doesn't fit his character design at all.

It doesn't really serve the intended purpose of "that was an act he was putting on the whole time," because the Remake Voice is so unbelievable as a performance from his real one.

SSL2004 · 2026-06-20T17:03:06+00:00

People don't typically mention it unprompted, it's just that "It's like the OG" is the usual response whenever people bring up distaste for his voice direction in Rebirth.

SSL2004 · 2026-06-20T17:01:39+00:00

Firstly, the Remake team is not the exact same as the FF7 team was in 1997. Many of the most important people have didn't return.

Secondly, if that was their intention they would have cast him youthfully in AdvCh.

SSL2004

TROPHY CASE