Final Fantasy 7 Remake adds to and changes an immense amount of plot details and thematic implications from the original, but one weird connection to Final Fantasy X-2 has stunned series fans. A longstanding fan theory about both games has lingered ever since the latter released in 2003, and Final Fantasy 7 Remake appears to have sneakily canonized it.
It really can't be stressed enough how drastically Final Fantasy 7 Remake deviates from its blocky 1997 inspiration, going so far as to completely rewrite one of the original's biggest plot twists in its controversial ending. However, Tetsuya Nomura, who directed both renditions of the Final Fantasy 7 story, insists that the remake doesn't overwrite the events of the original game. That means that while a fan theory connecting the events of Final Fantasy X-2 to the PS1 version of Final Fantasy 7 might still be up to interpretation, developer Square Enix may have taken the liberty of using Final Fantasy 7 Remake to officially link the games' story lines in a franchise first.
Among the first players of Final Fantasy 7 Remake to make record of the big change was AllGamesDelta, who tweeted their below findings. Players come across a "group photo of the founders" of the Shinra Electric Power Company at one point in Final Fantasy 7, and seated front and center in the photograph is a masked man resembling Final Fantasy X-2's Shinra, a tech whiz whose familiar name has roused excited speculators since that sequel (which was also a franchise first) released nearly two decades ago. The significance of this discovery is paramount to the Final Fantasy community, as its universes from game-to-game have been completely disparate since its start. Now, it seems clear that Final Fantasy X and X-2 take place in the same timeline as Final Fantasy 7 Remake, just centuries apart from one another.
While others debated over which Final Fantasy title should get the remake treatment next, VG247 dove deeper into the wild fan theory come true, scrutinizing Shinra's appearance in Final Fantasy X-2. While speaking about the Farplane ("the place where the spirits of the dead end up in FF10’s lore"), Shinra remarks that it could be possible to "extract its energy in usable form," even though it could "take generations" to do so. Putting two and two together, his plans for the Farplane sound uncannily similar to both versions of Final Fantasy 7's Lifestream, which is what the Shinra company eventually manufactures into Mako (and its Materia by-product) in order to power the world and its crowning achievement of Midgar.
Despite the name connection seeming obvious in retrospect, this theory was always regarded as a little out there by some fans, so the faithful who never gave up hope in Shinra's pivotal role in Final Fantasy 7 Remake probably feel incredibly vindicated right about now. As if Final Fantasy titles don't enjoy enough longevity in players' hearts and minds already, the discovery that the series' numerous universes might be canonically linked will be enough to keep eagle-eyed fans searching for more breakthroughs for years to come.
Source: AllGamesDelta, VG247