Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children(2024)

Plot Summary

• Setting: Advent Children takes place two years following the events of the 1997 role-playing video game Final Fantasy VII, during which the antagonist Sephiroth (George Newbern) attempted to absorb the Lifestream (the lifeblood and soul of the planet) and be reborn as a god. He was defeated by Cloud Strife (Steve Burton) and his companions. Still, Sephiroth's final spell, Meteor, destroyed the city of Midgar.Shinra company has discovered how to use the Lifestream as a source of energy. Shinra started to suppress those who disagreed using life-stream for energy purposes (as they felt it was draining the the life of the planet). Shinra created troops called SOLDIER. A long time ago, Jenova attacked Earth in the form of a meteor. Jenova infused the SOLDIERs with her cells. One of the SOLDIERS was Sephiroth.Since the end of the game, the survivors of Midgar founded the new city of Edge, where Cloud and his childhood friend Tifa Lockhart (Rachael Leigh Cook) now run a courier service and are the caretakers of an orphan Denzel and the adopted daughter of Barret Wallace (Beau Billingslea), Marlene (while Barret searches the planet for an alternative energy source to the Planet's energy, Mako). Due to feeling guilty for failing to save Aerith Gainsborough (Mena Suvari), Cloud has recently moved out and isolated himself from his friends. The story also portrays that many people, including Cloud and Denzel, are infected with a mysterious disease known as "Geostigma", which has no known cure. Marlene believes this is the planet's way of punishing people for using her Lifestream as a power source.Story: Cloud is contacted through Tifa and summoned to a meeting with the Shinra Company's former president Rufus Shinra (Wally Wingert), who was presumed killed in Final Fantasy VII. Rufus asks for Cloud's help to stop Kadaj (Steve Staley), Loz (Fred Tatasciore), and Yazoo (Dave Wittenberg). The trio is the physical manifestation of Sephiroth's surviving spirit and they attack Cloud in his exile. They are seeking to resurrect him using the remains of the extraterrestrial villain Jenova. Rufus claims that GeoStigma is a phenomenon from Sephiroth and is the biggest challenge in rebuilding the world. Rufus speculates that Sephiroth got absorbed into the Lifestream and now his consciousness traverses the entire planet. When Rufues and his team went into the Northern crater (where Sephiroth died), they find nothing but encounter Kadaj and his gang. Rufus says Kadaj and his men are working towards the revival of Sephiroth. Cloud refuses to help and leaves.Meanwhile, Kadaj and his colleagues are recruiting children infected with Geostigma. Denzel falls in with the group, attracted by their promises of a cure for the disease. Loz follows Tifa and Marlene to Aerith's church, where they had gone looking for Cloud, and attacks them. Tifa is knocked unconscious in the fight, and Loz kidnaps Marlene. All the abducted children are taken to the ruins of the Forgotten City, where Kadaj embraces them as brethren. He announces his intention for them all to be reunited with Jenova. Cloud finds Tifa in the church. Reno and Rude arrive and tell Cloud that Kadaj is behind the abduction of all children with GeoStigma. Tifa wants Cloud to fight Kadaj and save the kids.When Cloud arrives to rescue them, Kadaj's gang overpower him (they have hypnotized the kids, who stands in Cloud's way when he comes to attack Kadaj) but is saved by his old comrade Vincent Valentine (Steve Blum). Vincent tells Cloud that he has been trailing Kadaj and knows that if Kadaj gets hold of Jenova's remains, he will create another Sephiroth.Cloud then returns to the city, where Kadaj has summoned Bahamut SIN and other monsters to terrorize the population. With the help of his companions from Final Fantasy VII (Barret, Vincent etc), Cloud engages and defeats the monsters.Kadaj attacks Edge and confronts Rufus Shinra, who reveals he possesses Jenova's remains. Kadaj needs the remains to complete the reunion of Sephiroth with its consciousness. He attempts to destroy it (by throwing it off a building), but Kadaj saves it and flees the city with his companions. Yazoo and Loz are caught in a blast along the way by an explosive planted by Reno (Quinton Flynn) and Rude (Crispin Freeman) (who work for Rufus).Cloud chases Kadaj down and engages him in battle on a freeway, ultimately subduing him. Outmatched, Kadaj opens Jenova's box and fuses with its contents, transforming into Sephiroth. He then tells Cloud he will use Geostigma's deceased victims' souls to dominate the planet. He will devour the planet and use it as a vessel to roam the universe, just as Jenova did eons ago. to find a new planet. He and Cloud then fight. Sephiroth appears to have the upper hand throughout the encounter, flinging Cloud repeatedly into walls and finally impaling him through the shoulder.He asks Cloud to tell him what he most cherishes so that he can have the pleasure of taking it away. Cloud replies that he cherishes everything and then uses his Limit Break, Omnislash Ver. 5, to defeat Sephiroth. Sephiroth's spirit departs, leaving behind the mortally wounded Kadaj. As he lies dying in Cloud's arms, a healing rain starts falling across the land, curing the people of their Geostigma. Yazoo and Loz appear and confront Cloud; he charges at them, and they set off a massive explosion engulfing the three.Cloud has a vision of his deceased friends Aerith and Zack Fair (Rick Gomez), who says that his time to join them has not yet come. He then awakens in the church, healed of his injuries, and surrounded by his friends. Behind them, he sees Aerith and Zack leaving the church and hears Aerith's voice say, "You see, everything's all right." He agrees: "I know. I'm not alone... not anymore."

Storyline

• Two years after the events in "Final Fantasy VII", a disease called 'Seikon-Shoukougun', or 'Geostigma', is spreading through the planet. This disease is believed to have been caused by the body fighting off foreign material that invaded the body two years earlier, at the end of "Final Fantasy VII". Guilt-ridden and haunted by his past, ex-SOLDIER Cloud Strife has decided to live a secluded, solitary life away from his friends while maintaining "Strife's Delivery Service", whose headquarters is located in Tifa Lockheart's bar, the Seventh Heaven. Tifa's bar serves as an orphanage for children stricken with Geostigma. Here, Tifa keeps an eye on Barret's six-year-old daughter, Marlene, while Barret searches the planet for an alternative energy source to the Planet's energy, Mako. One day, Cloud receives a phone call from the former Shinra, Inc. president, Rufus, asking him for protection from a mysterious man named Kadaj. Kadaj, in the meantime, along with his brothers Loz and Yazoo, are searching for their "mother", and seem to believe that Cloud knows where to find her. Meanwhile, Vincent Valentine has been wandering the planet gathering information on Kadaj's scheme, and Cloud and his friends must come together again to fight these new enemies. — Andrea Two years after "Final Fantasy 7", life seems to have returned to a state of normality after Sephiroth's attempts at mass genocide and the danger of Meteor. On the edge of the ruins of the metropolis Midgar, a new city has thrived, called the Edge and at it's center lies a monument that entails no one will forget Meteor and the ones who died. Cloud Strife, the hero who defeated Sephiroth, is a delivery boy now, no longer interested in fighting wars or leading rebellions. The world is at peace, and AVALANCHE is gone it's separate ways. Tifa Lockheart has reopened the new 7th Heaven, in the Edge, looking after Marlene and other orphans, including Denzel. Barret Wallace is working with the WRO in finding new energy sources to supply the world now that Mako is no longer used. Cid Highwind is also working with the WRO, as an airship pilot and leader of their air fleet. Reeve (and Cait Sith) is now heading the WRO and working, striving, to create a better world for all. Vincent Valentine has returned to solace, switching his places between his mansion home in Nibleheim and the Sleeping Forest, and the Forgotten City. Yuffie Kirisagi is back in Wutai, though what the Ninja is doing is unknown to all. But despite this lull in adventure, there is something that is striving the world. Geostigma, the Sephiroth, JENOVA's memetic legacy. A disease that counters the body's own defence system in on itself and causes it to destroy itself. Rufus ShinRa, ex-President of Midgar, is a sufferer of the disease, along with the ex-SOLDIER Cloud, and lives now in his hide-away home the Healin Lodge with his faithful bodyguards, the Turks. But who are the mysterious silver haired band, known as Kadaj's Gang? Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo, all of silver hair and teal eyes. Who are these strange people, who appear so much like Sephiroth? — Olek Tamarani