Quote Originally Posted by Madame Adequate View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
The visual clues in the end show us that Zack surviving his death in Crisis Core is not in the same timeline as the story we're following. So I firmly believe that he, along with Biggs, Wedge and Jessie are deceased in our story, just like in the OG. But even if 'our' past did change to survive the Crisis Core ending... the final shot we have of Zack is him carrying Cloud towards the edge of a a cliff overlooking Midgar... which, in the original game is exactly the situation where he was killed.
Wait, that doesn't make any sense though. They wouldn't show us Zack if they weren't intending to include him in the story we're, like, actually in and experiencing. Same with Biggs waking up, and implying Jessie might have survived. Just from a storytelling perspective it makes no sense.
Assuming he is still alive in the alternate timeline we saw, I suspect that might be used as a 'what-if' timeline. A way to flash into various events and show us how things might have played out if other decisions were made. I could even seen that being used as a way to keep the original FFVII events more or less in-tact.

"Hey, now we've killed destiny, ANYTHING can happen! But look at this other timeline that shows what happened when Zack lived/the plate didn't fall/Aerith doesn't go to summon holy. Look at how it always ended up with the planet getting destroyed! Guess we better follow the original events after all."