In my first game of recently acquired FFVII-R, which, because of a timely Covid infection (despite doing all the right things), I'm at the point where the game says to go ahead and get all the little things you want to do out of the way before the point of no return. So, I'm maxing materia, weapons, etc - doing all the quests, and generally just getting everything. Makes you wonder though: This is just Midgar. We've got a conservative three more episodes of plot. Without some sort of intervention on high, we'll be entering Kalm decked out like we ran a GameShark on the PSX disks. There are three options: SE plans for the power creep and ups the ante/adds more content appropriately, 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. Not sure which is best, but the first would best pique my interest. I'm almost guessing it's option 3 and we start each episode from a baseline that SE deems appropriate for gameplay purposes. Maybe there are two options? One is a fresh start recommended for the enjoyable challenge level, and the other is what amounts to a new game + with the disclaimer that challenge will be ruined?