Final Fantasy 7 Remake's final scene gets a script change 2 days before its sequel drops, and it's going down about as well as you'd expect

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(Image credit: Square Enix)

Aerith, a peppy and optimistic character in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, looks a tad confused towards the right of the screen.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth doesn’t have aset-in-stone PC port date yet, but it’s still coming to the PS5 in a couple of days. In the run-up, the Remake’sreceived a new patch. While the official singular note is just “fixes to several bugs”, Square Enix has actually snuck in a change to the english localisation that has fans up-in-arms.Spoilers for the ending of Final Fantasy 7 Remake,in case that wasn’t clear.

(Image credit: @Mgata_official on Twitter/X.)

A post that reads: “Aerith’s final line in #FF7R was changed!” With an image comparison between the two.

(Image credit: @GenePark on Twitter/X.)

A post that reads: “this is awful and upsetting. the original line was my favorite line”

(Image credit: @StellaNoxEclair on Twitter/X.)

A post that reads: “They really needed a better compromise here In a vacuum this is a bit stilted but fine, but when you consider this is the last line in the game it needed to be way more flowery “I hate it, this neverending sky” or something, I don’t know, this doesn’t seem like they tried”

I mean, look. On face-value I agree that this seems like a weird step backwards, but it’s sometimes my solemn duty to dig into the reasons why a given discourse is happening. I’ll try my best.

As I understand it, this patch is mainly intended to tie up some continuity threads between the Remake and its sequel, Rebirth. For example: An adolescent Tifa now has a shirt underneath her outfit in a cutscene, primarily to match Rebirth’s design.

As for Aerith’s unpopular line, the best argument I could find in favour of the change was a link toCrisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion. In it, Aerith is characterised as, rather than being fond of Midgar’s “Steel Sky” (the plates that hang overhead in the slums), she’safraidof the open one.

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If we apply Nomura’s line of thinking, then it makes sense why the line was changed in retrospect. On the other hand, I’m not sure it really achieves the intended impact.

(Image credit: Square Enix)

Aerith

For starters—as some baffled fans have already pointed out—missing a steel sky can, in fact, still imply you’re afraid of the one you’re looking at. ‘I wanna go home’ is a normal human response to danger and uncertainty, which is essentially what the original line conveyed.

Another point that’s been made is that localisations don’t—nor should they—literally translate their sources. Take Final Fantasy 14 for example. It has some of the best localisation in the series specificallybecausethe English localisation team went hog wild with some ambitious changes.

Take a central NPC Urianger, for example. In Japanese, I’m told that Urianger speaks with some flowery and formal language. The localisation team decided to interpret this as hefty Shakespearian prose—and while it does make him hilariously hard to understand at times, there was a story moment in Endwalker (that I won’t spoil here) where he speaks normally for a couple of lines. It’s employed with such tactical emotional precision that I still well up thinking about it.

My point being, large changes in translation are not only normal, they’re industry-standard and often effective. They aren’t meant to ruin your favourite thing, they’re meant to use the language to its full effectiveness. I can see how the desire to hew closer to the original Japanese line might’ve ruined it for some people, and it’s a strange decision, even if I’m not exactly losing sleep over it.

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