OK, how about this:
- Part 2 cold opens in Nibelheim PAST. This is the game's dramatic Bombing Run equivalent. Cloud and Sephiroth arrive in town and the player has the opportunity to relearn Cloud's controls. Character switching is then introduced by allowing players to switch to Sephiroth, making him playable for this sequence. When it ends with the lab incident and the town in flames, narration by Cloud transitions out of the scene and into Kalm PRESENT, where Cloud is recounting the past to the party.
- Kalm has several quests to complete before you leave, and each pairs you up with a different member of the party, allowing you to relearn Barret, Tifa, Aerith -- and introducing playable Red.
- The party leaves Kalm. The world is semi-open, like an area in Dragon Quest XI, allowing you to explore off the beaten path for rewards or avoid enemy encounters, but ultimately funneling you toward a destination point: The Chocobo Ranch. This region would look similar to Duscae from FFXV.
- At the Chocobo Ranch, you mount chocobos and continue into the Marshlands, where the serpent gives chase in a setpiece similar to the motorcycle setpiece from Part 1's Ch. 4.
- The Mythril Mines are a proper dungeon, with a newly added boss. When you emerge from the caves, you are now in the mountains, with the slain serpent outside the cave exit. Ahead you see the giant condor perched atop the reactor at the Shinra fort, incubating its egg (Fort Condor).
- The storyline at Fort Condor reestablishes the concept that there are different factions of people throughout the world resisting Shinra.
- From Fort Condor you descend the mountains to the seaside city of Junon. (I picture the terrain similar to approaching the final city in the first region of Death Stranding.)
- Junon's embellished role in the story is to show the leadup to war with Wutai. The military parade is now a patriotic rally for the coming conflict. Rufus Shinra (now the president) is reintroduced, along with the other executives.
- You still have the infiltration in disguise, as well as helping Priscilla and her dolphin by fending off the winged sea serpent Bottomswell. Cloud saving the girl's life and riding the dolphin to the upper level would be intact.
- The Cargo Ship would be an explorable space where the characters wander off to different corners of the ship and you can approach them for heart-to-heart story moments staring out at the sea, solemnly reflecting on what's ahead. Then you have a boss battle with Jenova Birth.
- The tropical resort town of Costa del Sol would be expanded with new sidequests. And yes, shameless swimsuit fan service. (Let me have this!) This town serves as a palate cleanser after the darkness that preceded it on the ship.
- From Costa del Sol you strike out across another semi-open stretch of countryside ascending Mount Corel with its rope bridges and fog-wreathed peaks. Here you find the refugee settlement of North Corel and learn Barret's backstory with Dyne (former friend and Marlene's biological father, who also has a gun for an arm).
- Golden Saucer follows, a gilded casino in the sky. Cait Sith (remote controlled by Reeves with a VR headset) joins the party. You would have chocobo racing and a variety of minigames in what would be the game's Wall Market equivalent.
- Here's an interesting idea from the Easy Allies podcast featuring Maximillian: What if Jessie appears here, alive and well, as the lead in the princess play we learned about in Part 1 Ch. 4? And somehow both of her parents are there in the audience, and her dad is conscious? And yet Jessie has no recollection of Avalanche...
This is where the multiverse concept from the end of Part 1 comes back into play. When our heroes defeated the Whispers at the end of Part 1, they disrupted the timeline such that different realities are now blending together. But more on this in a bit.
- While Jessie doesn't remember our heroes at first, in talking to them she begins to have Cloud-style flashbacks to another timeline and she remembers Avalanche, even though -this- Jessie did not participate in Avalanche. But she is now sympathetic to their cause. Bonus: On the date night at Golden Saucer, she can be one of the dates alongside Tifa, Aerith, Barret, etc.
- Corel Prison follows, bringing closure between Barret and Dyne. The jungles of Gongaga follow, featuring an encounter with Reno and Rude. Throughout it all, the party is now wrestling with the implications of a multiverse. Of particular concern are the visions Aerith is experiencing. She opens up about them, revealing that she believes her unnatural death is inevitable.
- In the cliffside community of Cosmo Canyon, not only do we learn more about Red's origins, but we meet the wise man Bugenhagen, who's able to to explain the multiverse, and offer a glimmer of hope that perhaps Aerith's fate can be averted. The emotional thrust of Part 2 thus becomes the party knowing what may be coming, but trying to find a way to avoid it.
- We have another dungeon in the Caves of Gi, featuring the undead tribal warlord Gi Nattak as the boss, and his twin Soul Fires. He was a chieftain who once declared war on Red's ancestors. Maybe defeating him could lead to more revelations about the nature of the universe.
- The story then ends where it began, in Nibelheim PRESENT. We continue to sort through Cloud's identity crisis and his patchwork recollection of the past. The Shinra Mansion is greatly expanded here, with Vincent joining as a non-playable late-game equivalent to Red in Part 1. In the lab, we could have a newly added Sephiroth battle to mirror the one added to Part 1.
Just some ideas. The main takeaway would be, Part 2 makes the party aware of the fate that may await them, and gives them the HOPE to avoid that fate. Part 3 could then feature the fateful moment at the City of the Ancients -- and perhaps Aerith dies anyway. But it will still be emotionally impactful because the devs will have given you the hope that maybe it could be avoided. Soul-crushing all over again!
dont you dare put that on this
