#future content?

Long before we get caught up in all the lies of Nibelheim, Sephiroth's born there, although he doesn't know the village is his hometown.

Nibelheim is where Cloud and Tifa share their promise.

Nibelheim is the heart of the story where everything begins for the hero, heroine and villain.

We visit Nibelheim 4 times during the course of the game. The first time is during the Kalm flashback, where we're sold Cloud's illusion of what happened.

The second time we visit Nibelheim is the first physical visit to the location, where we find everything rebuilt and a lot of liars installed to push Shinra propaganda about what happened. Cloud and Tifa know the truth, or partially anyway, but here we have a very elaborate lie making them doubt themselves.

The third visit is Sephiroth's lie because he knows Cloud was there, but he tells the group Cloud wasn't there. This breaks Cloud's mind when Tifa doubts their shared memories because Cloud never told her he was in Nibelheim back then because he was hiding from her.

The final visit is during the lifestream scene where we get the truth.

So, since Nibelheim is the emotional core of the story, wouldn't it make sense for the final battle between Cloud and Sephiroth to happen there? Sephiroth crafts one last illusion to try and defeat Cloud by bringing him back to Nibelheim, the place where he's most vulnerable, where he feels like a failure.

However, Sephiroth has no idea what Cloud and Tifa shared in the lifestream, so this isn't a place where Cloud feels like a failure, it's the place where he finally learned the girl he loves felt the same way the whole time. It's the place he defeated a villain and saved the girl he loves. It gives him strength to overpower Sephiroth and defeat him again within that fateful seven seconds.

Haruka Shibai tweeting reunion flower and a lot of other lifestream scene sounding hints, and then Katsuyuki Yamazaki also mocapping at the same time.

We were told in one of the Remake ultimania interviews with Nojima that he wanted to add Tifa in chapter 8 doing sidequests to obtain her outfits from the alone at last choices. They had to cut it because they didn't finish in time, but we can see here they got far enough into development they had a branching sidequest for her that involved Marle, the general store guy and a travelling merchant from Wutai.

Something interesting hit me just now. This is where OG lil Tifa starts during the Mt Nibel climb. We can see she's got her 3 friends around her.

This is how far away she is from Cloud when he appears to come after her. She's already lost one friend, who passes Cloud as he enters the screen.

This is how close Remake lil Cloud was to Tifa when she started walking to Mt Nibel.

First friend.

Second friend.

Third friend.

And lil Tifa looked right at Cloud. Right at him. Meaning she was close enough to make eye contact when this memory formed.

So, if Cloud wasn't friends with Tifa. If they weren't ever close, why is he within the group here? He wasn't this close to them in the OG, and in the chapter 1 flashback, Tifa seems surprised Cloud's ignoring her, like it hasn't happened before. And Cloud came out of her house during that scene, not his.

We may well find out in part 2 that before Mt Nibel they were close friends and that after, Cloud was always avoiding her because her dad said to because the other boys put the blame on Cloud for her falling. And that'll be why he kept starting fights with them. That's why he insists he's not like them. Liars.

But, Tifa was always nice to him still and it seems she wasn't surprised Cloud called her out that promise night. It wasn't the loner boy summoning her at random. I'll bet they still talked and hung out whenever her dad wasnt watching. Cloud calling her out that night gave her reason to dress up. Why? Unless they spent time together before that and Tifa developed a crush on him. She was waiting for Cloud to ask her out. Her greeting is friendly, casual, flirty. It's not speaking to someone she's unfamiliar with. Her "so what did you wanna talk about?" sounds as though she and Cloud talk often, but this time is special because he called her out to the date spot.