WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Final Fantasy VII Remake, available now.

Final Fantasy VII Remake stays true to the original source material in many ways, recreating the world of Midgar and the Sector 7 Slums. Familiar faces, plot points, tunes and bosses appear, but for all that the game retains from 1997's Final Fantasy VII, a lot also changes. One of these major changes is the final boss fight, which turns out to be against Sephiroth, though the game arguably jumped the shark by including it. Here's why.

At the end of the Midgar portion of the game in the original Final Fantasy VII, the final boss is Rufus on the Shinra roof, followed by the bike chase out of Midgar. Mere moments before that scene, Sephiroth makes his chilling debut. While Cloud, Tifa and the gang are locked up in the Shinra holding facility, Sephiroth goes on a murder spree throughout the building.

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As far as villainous debuts go, that one was certainly memorable. It marked the game's major shift from making Shinra the villain to Sephiroth, a monster of Shinra's creation. The remake telegraphs Sephiroth's involvement very differently, hinting at his ties to Cloud from the start.

"Different" doesn't necessarily mean bad, and in fact, including those early scenes of Sephiroth taunting Cloud with reminders of the Nibelheim incident were a great new way to introduce the legendary villain and tease his connection to Cloud. It helps set the stage for the future impending battle between the two and the inevitable revelation of their secret past. However, including him as the final boss fight of the game so early into the story waters down what a threat he really is.

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Sephiroth, in the original game, was a looming threat every player knew they would have to inevitably fight. During flashbacks, he's touted as an unstoppable hero, the best Soldier Shinra had ever seen. There's even a sequence where the player controls Sephiroth in Nibelheim, watching as he takes down difficult monsters in one hit.

There are three whole game discs worth of content building up to the inevitable Cloud and Sephiroth battle. The final battle is so epic, Sephiroth summons a meteor to destroy the planet and the two showdown from the inside of an ancient crater. His theme, "One-Winged Angel," blares for the first time and, finally, Cloud unleashes his now-iconic Omnislash technique, taking his enemy down in the battle's third stage.  That suspense and build-up is gone when Sephiroth becomes a nearly-beatable threat so early in the story.

The battle with Sephiroth feels unnecessary and tacked on, enough so that one has to wonder if he'd even be the final boss fight if this game chose to tell the complete story of Final Fantasy VII and not just its first act. It feels more like it was shoehorned in and lacks the high stakes of the original. While it's a fun boss fight, it's not necessary so early in the game's story.

What does feel more like a final boss is the fight between Avalanche and the giant Whispers of Fate. The game flashes to several iconic scenes, like Aerith's death, as the gang ponders if they can truly change the hands of fate. What could be a more epic boss fight for the first half of a long-awaited remake for a popular franchise installment than battling fate itself? It's clever, it's new and, in the end, feels slightly cheapened by Sephiroth's last-minute inclusion.

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