I can see Roche returning in every part, similar to the Turks.

I love that this game seems to be a sequel and a remake at the same time.  This ensures that the PS1 version isn't being replaced while giving us something new.  This obviously won't mean much if they can't stick the landing because it won't be easy. 

Go back and replay the game and pay attention to everything being said by Sephiroth with the assumption that this Sephiroth is from Advent Children (the music that plays right after he dissappears the first time you meet him is a track from AC, not OG FF7).  He already knows he fails and something needs to change.  This is why the Whispers are around.  Something isn't right from the start (Aerith immediately senses him in the opening cutscene, as the One Winged Angel remix is playing).   He starts making changes right from the start (he stops Cloud, potentially trying to keep him from meeting Aerith, which is why Whispers show up to keep her around and ensure they meet).  Some other interesting tidbits that point towards Advent Children is that the three Whispers you fight at the end have the same weapons and moves as Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo (they even merge into a form of Bahamut, which they summon in AC) and the big "Harbinger of Fate" can also be a reference to Sephiroth, since Vincent calls him "the calamities Dark Harbinger."  There's much more but this would turn into a thesis.  Here's a video that explains it better than I could:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfgw7iDZ-bo

It's long, but it's really exciting IMO.  I can't wait to see what happens next.

Yeah there is a lot of speculation that this timeline's Aeris somehow knows about the original timeline and that she is fated to eventually die at Sephiroth's hands (hence why she basically thrusts the fated flower into Cloud's hands in their first encounter and doesn't even charge him for it, because he was pretty much walking past her and trying to ignore her, so she was trying to keep things playing out how they were meant to (then of course the Whispers show up after the event). It also explains her outright telling Cloud to not fall in love with her, she's trying to spare him the inevitable grief of losing her that of course turns him into a guilt-stricken emo and makes up a big part of AC.

But with the original version of events effectively erased now and replaced by a blank slate, anything is possible. I strongly believe she ends up surviving, and that because of that Holy loses a lot of it's cohesion and thus Meteorfall is ultimately more destructive than it originally was (case in point: the flashforward in the VR auditorium shows the Shinra Building collapsing completely during Meteor, where as it remained mostly intact but just badly damaged originally and still remained '500 years later'.) - because killing Aeris actually helped cement his downfall because of it (not to mention made Cloud more determined to defeat him). The moment he impaled her on Masamune he sealed his fate.

Thus keeping Aeris alive to the end means Holy isn't as powerful without her spirit within the Lifestream to direct it and by extension, the Planet to defend itself, thus, either way, Sephiroth gets what he wants (this would explain why he didn't just go even further back and kill her and Ifalna when they were still in Shinra custody). But, Nomura and co may also just as easily decide to have her die still elsewhere unexpectedly, so I'm kind of dreading how things will turn out, just as much as I am excited about the new story direction.

And then there is the little matter of Mr Fair being alive now as well - that alone is going to throw a few spanners in the proverbial works once he makes his spiky face known to AVALANCHE (none the less because it will shatter Cloud's fake 'ex SOLDIER' persona immediately having the person he based his alter ego on standing there). ;)

get the accessory that starts one character with a full Limit bar. Of course, that's easier said than done, as one particular battle in the final SCS challenge is a real bitch to beat. Probably took me about 30 to 40 tries, but it was worth it.