Quote Originally Posted by Garland View Post
SE crudely bludgeons us with a plot-based deus ex machina to strip us of all the inconvenient power, or, future episodes are wholly independent of one another and data doesn't transfer at all.
I feel like one of these will be likely. My best guess is you will just start over with a few token materia and a couple levels gained at the start of each game.

Given how much of the main game plot is left to go, I suspect they will go in a very different direction for future installments and ignore much of the main game, rather than expand on it as they did with FFVIIR.