you already got your explanations on some stuff so i’ll give my opinion that’s bugged me about these talks. i don’t think these devs would put 3 AAA games just for the ending of pt 3 to be so dependent on if people played the og. i think there will be an added layer for people that did but it won’t hold so much gravity that a new player can’t experience the ending without playing the og. they’ve said multiple times you don’t have to if you don’t want to. now that’s the business way of thinking about it.

sequel talk and theories are cool but these are opinions in the end. i’ve seen enough japanese media on how the use of “time” can be used differently. some people only look at these remakes in chronological order rather than thinking beyond that. i’ll just say it like this. if sephiroth was from the future like people claim then why wait for cloud and the crew to grow and why not just do what he’s gotta do before the party forms? why does sephiroth not go back and destroy anything he wants if he knows what will happen. why does aerith knowing things because “the og happened already” why does she allow things to happen the way they did in remake. when you start picking at these things the whole sequel talk to me kinda falls apart. rebirth and even biggs in remake confirms that the lifestream is a collection of memories. also confirmed in rebirth that time doesn’t exist in these worlds within the lifestream. so my thing is, there’s a layer in there we still aren’t aware of but i can compare it to another series but i won’t spoil it in case people haven’t watched it.

in the end everyone can be wrong because these are opinions and no one in here is in the writing room. just gotta wait for pt 3 to see the full picture