Who is Zack Fair in FF7? So lets get know more about Zack Fair in Final Fantasy 7. The presence of Final Fantasy VII Remake seems to be a success and is a strong candidate as one of the best games for 2020.
Changes in graphics that take advantage of today's technology, to evolve battles that become more action-packed with less RPGs, have also been successfully executed by Square Enix. We have also played it ourselves and have been successfully nostalgic and enchanted. You can check our Final Fantasy VII Remake review on this page.
SPOILER ALERT!
This article is just my opinion and reading. Next in this section there will be many spoilers from the original Final Fantasy VII, remake version, Crisis Core and several other Final Fantasy games. If you have played or are not affected by spoilers, then feel free to read this article in total.
Final Fantasy VII does have a myriad of iconic characters wrapped in an emotional epic story. You may be amazed by the edgy boy Cloud, the sexy bouncer Tifa, or Aerith the gardener, who in the end has to die and succeed in breaking the hearts of the fans. But personally, Zack Fair is the most memorable figure for me in the universe of Final Fantasy VII.
In Final Fantasy VII itself, Zack is always shown as part of Cloud's memory, which certainly makes players curious about the significance of the character's role for Cloud's character development in the whole story, even to the film, Advent Children. However, the story about Zack Fair itself has only become the main focus of the prequel spin-off game entitled Crisis Core.
Crisis Core Official Art Crisis Core might be an underrated Final Fantasy game because one of the main reasons is its release only on the PSP platform. But for those who have played and finished the game, maybe have the same impression as me; amazed and baffled at the same time, especially with the character Zack himself.
The attitude of a figure who can be said is everything with a positive attitude and upholds justice and moral values. Always visible, never give up, friendly and sociable, and have a dream to be a "Hero" who always protects and helps people. From that, Zack is also shown as a person who likes to flirt with charming women, like Aerith for example.
Zack Fair Story
The Crisis Core story begins with Zack, who is still the 2nd Class SOLDIER SOLDIER under Angeal, under one of the three strongest SOLDIers at that time apart from Sephiroth and Genesis. Promoted to SOLDIER Class 1, he gets a mission to investigate a city in the mountains of Modeoheim. On that mission, he met Cloud, who was arguably not yet edgy and still lackluster.
The story of exchanging as someone who both came from the village, they quickly became close friends. Cloud began to see Zack as his role model and wanted to be strong like him, just like Zack who made Angeal his role model.
Apart from Cloud, Aerith also has a close relationship with Zack. Even though Final Fantasy VII shows that Aerith and Cloud have a crush, Zack is Aerith's first love. The funny thing is perhaps Aerith's meeting with Cloud and Zack who are similar, who both fall into the Church where Aerith cares for her plants. Zack offers Aerith to go on a date with him as a token of gratitude for waking him up, and in Final Fantasy VII, Aerith asks Cloud to be his bodyguard on a date as payment.
Crisis Core (Left) | FFVII Remake (Right) Zack's absence in Final Fantasy VII, of course, indirectly makes those of you who will play Crisis Core have to accept that Zack will die in his game. When I finished Crisis Core, I was quite successful at being so bored, because the ending series were really emotional.
Nearing the end of the post-story in Nibelheim, Zack and Cloud were experimented with by Hojo by injecting them JENOVA cells, but it failed. Asleep for 4 years, Zack awakens to see (hallucinate) the figure of Angeal who saves him, then Zack helps Cloud who is paralyzed due to excessive Mako poisoning and decides to escape from the place. Shinra then sets Zack and Cloud to be fugitives so that the experiment that is not humane conducted by Shinra does not leak to the public.
As you might see in the flashbacks of the game or movie, Zack and Cloud hitched a ride on a truck on their way back to Midgar. Zack Fair has plans to retire from SOLDIER to become a mercenary with Cloud. However, when they were close to Midgar, they were ambushed by a large number of Shinra troops. Zack housing Cloud who is still paralyzed, and ventures to face the Shinra troops who are waiting alone.
At this moment, the player is in control of Zack. But unlike the previous battles, Zack will only fight a group of SOLDIERS with ordinary abilities, but their numbers will not run out. Not only that, the occasional missile attack will appear from a helicopter in the distance with considerable damage. A few moments or when near death (red), the Modulation Phase or Digital Thought Wave (DMW) will be activated and Zack's memories of Zack's memories.
Modulation Phase. Crisis Core (via Shirrako) For the record, the Modulating Phase or DMW is a slot machine-like feature but with the ones most important to Zack being the icons. Zack will get bonuses such as EXP, buff status, special attacks, and even summon. This DMW feature can also serve as a representation of Zack's memories.
But when the modulation phase is over, the memory of these relatives fades. This happened repeatedly as the fight continued, until the final Modulation Stage where Aerith became Zack's memory. After that, a cutscene is played where Zack leaves the Buster Sword to Cloud as a symbol of his dreams and honor, and wants Cloud to become his Living Legacy.
What makes this ending memorable and frustrating for me is that I know Zack will die, but I keep fighting and continue to heal for Zack to survive. This coupled with the soundtrack entitled Price of Freedom spins the last battle, as if to give the impression that this battle is the one for Zack.
For me, Crisis Core is a game that can compete with Final Fantasy VII's superiority, at least in terms of story. Without Crisis Core, maybe we will never see clearly the character and motivation of Cloud and Aerith in the main game.
A while ago, I tried to play Final Fantasy VII Remake which I borrowed from my neighbor. For example, I lent him Nioh 2. I was made to smile and get bored when I watched a cutscene involving Cloud's memory of Zack.
Until the end of the game, I felt that there was something different in a cutscene involving Zack, namely he walked with Cloud towards Midgar and not the final moments like what happened in Crisis Core. But I ignore the reason that a remake game certainly also presents a new cutscene, even though the delivery point itself is the same.
After a while, I tried to reminisce about Crisis Core by looking for comments and discussions about Zack's appearance in Final Fantasy VII Remake. And it turns out, I found some people who also felt something was different from some of the cutscenes involving Zack. This is where I found out that there are already several theories suggesting that Zack is still alive, at least for this remake version.
Zack's cutscene after the last battle. Final Fantasy VII Remake (via Izuniy) One that is quite popular is the alternative time theory, where in fact we are not in the story that happened in the original Final Fantasy VII.
This can be seen from the Final Fantasy Remake which presents a creature called Whispers who looks like a dementor from the Harry Potter series. The character Red we meet at the end of the game describes them with "Arbiters of Fate" who are arguably the guardians of destiny to stay on track. The significance of Whisper's own role seems to be influencing the continuation story, perhaps even experiencing a different storyline.
Launching from Final Fantasy Ultimania (via Inverse), Tetsuya Nomura explained that he wanted the battle against the final boss, the Whispers gathered as one, to take place outside Midgar. This is like an indication that there is a special reason for this place, one of which is the place that might be the same as Zack's death. Not only that, even Nomura also said that there are characters who are still alive, and have even disappeared 5 years before the events of Final Fantasy VII.
There are characters who are alive, which leads to a great mystery.
- Tetsuya Nomura
Zack Fair is probably the strongest candidate for this living character. But it does not rule out that this character is another character, such as Genesis for example, wherein the Crisis Core itself is still alive after being defeated by Zack for some time at the end of the story. In Dirge of Cerberus itself, especially the secret ending, Genesis is shown to be alive, even saying that he still has things to do.
As a result of that, there are two possibilities of the mystery of whether alternate timing occurred and whether Zack is still alive or not. The first is that we play on the timeline where Zack is still alive and missing. Second, Aerith explained that the place to fight with the Arbiters of Fate is Destiny's Crossroad or path of destiny if it is based on literals. Indirectly, this indicates that they enter a different dimension even though they are both outside the Midgar. And when you defeat the Arbiters of Fate, there will be a change of destiny that exceeds the dimensional limit in the past or the future.
Aerith before entering Destiny's Road. Final Fantasy VII Remake (via Izuniy) Of course the first mistake in the Final Fantasy series has a different storyline. Call it Final Fantasy XV, where Square Enix embeds several new endings through the Ignis Episod DLC, where one of them is that Noctis remains alive and becomes the new king for Lucis.
Although the premise is interesting and mysterious, I myself don't agree if Zack is brought back to life. The main reason, of course, is that Zack's death itself has a strong influence on Cloud as the main character, as well as Aerith, who also has a significant role in the course of the Final Fantasy VII story. The reason for fanservice itself is also in my opinion too exaggerated and it even impresses me to hook more money.
Read to "10 Fact Cloud Strife Final Fantasy 7 Character Game"
Another reason is that I don't want Final Fantasy VII to have a complex story like Kingdom Hearts which Nomura also worked on. Of course, it would be strange if the original Final Fantasy VII, which was neatly and attractive, suddenly appeared a story where Sephiroth's story from one timeline to another to realize his evil ambitions and make it difficult for Cloud et al to catch up.
Hopefully, that only applies so my assumption is. The story is certainly not a problem, but changing due to time differences in my opinion is very unnecessary, let alone resurrecting a character like Zack who has actually died peacefully and has inherited his Living Legacy through the Cloud. Let Zack calm down in the lifestream and become a precious memory for Cloud and Aerith.
But who I am is the one who supervised Square Enix is working on the continuation of Final Fantasy VII Remake. I am just someone who until now thinks that no Final Fantasy has been able to beat the fighting power of Final Fantasy XII. Whatever happens, I hope that the sequel will be more than anything this section desires.
Would like to quote the late Zack Fair before closing this article;
Boy oh boy, the price of freedom is steep.
- Zack Fair