Windows

Final Fantasy VII

Trivia

In the German gaming magazine PC Player (issue 01/1999) Final Fantasy VII was named as "Best RPG in 1998".

It received two awards in PSExtreme Magazine's 1997 Extreme Awards (Vol. 3, Iss. 3):

• Best Role Playing Game of the Year
• Best Game Graphics of the Year

Game Informer Magazine (Issue #138, Oct. 2004) named it one of the "Top 25 Most Influential Games of All Time".

In June 2008 Rich Whitehouse released the fangame sequel Avalanche, continuing the story, but with brawling beat-em-up gameplay.

Contributed by Sciere (118122) on Jun 15, 2008.

In the PlayStation version the second time you go to Mideel talk to Cloud three times and you'll get a reference to Xenogears:

"A billion mirror fragments......small......light......taken......angel's......singing voices......xeno......gias......"

At the time, it was not yet known if Xenogears would be localized for Western audiences. In the later Windows version "xeno gias" was changed to "xeno gears", making the reference much more obvious.

At E3 2005 Square-Enix showed a remake of the original FFVII intro with new up-to-date graphics, including a full-detailed Midgard and high-res characters. The video was said to be a tech demo, meant to show off the capabilities of the new Sony console, and in spite there have been in time much more astounding videos made in that sense, this one literally caused a sensation because many people all over the world thought that if Square had put much effort for such a remake, there really was going to be a remake.

No less than 2 million copies were sold in just two days when the game was released in Japan.

Due to the popularity of Final Fantasy VII, Square-Enix released a full-length CG animated feature film called Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. The film is set several years after the events of the game.

A couple names were changed for the North American release prior to its release. Among them, Aeris was originally Aerith in Japan, Bugenhagen was originally Buugen Hagen, and Mako was originally called Makou.

The character Sephiroth wields the legendary sword, Masamune. Named after a famous Japanese swordsmith, a variant of the Masamune has appeared in countless Square games including other Final Fantasys, Chrono Trigger and Vagrant Story.

As many people may know that FFVII was an incomplete game. There where many things cut out of the final product. There are certain programs that allow you to view game files such as background images and text, and by doing so you can see some that weren't used. if you where to search through all the text you can find text for receiving item that are not in the game such as an Elixir in the pipe of the sick man in Midgar, an item called "Letter to Wife in Kalm", "Letter to Daughter in Kalm", "Homemade Potion!" that you where supposed to get from Clouds mother, and maybe the most interesting of all is the item "High Blow ST" which sounds a lot like a weapon witch is supposed to be found in the basement of Shinra mansion but is nowhere to be found in the game.

Producer Hironobu Sakaguchi allowed Aeris to die as an expression of grief after his mother died during the production of Final Fantasy III.

Final Fantasy VII's PC install disc includes the Yamaha YXG-100 MIDI synthesizer software. For a year or two after this game was released, the install disc was the only place where you could find YXG-100. Yamaha's download page featured only the YXG-50 and YXG-70 versions of the software. The website can be found in related links.

There are some references to Norse mythology in this game. The two I can think of right now is:

1. Midgar = Midgård = Middle-Earth, which is the world humans live on.

2. Nibelheim = Nifelheim. The one in the game is Cloud's home town and in Norse mythology it was the ice land (there was also a fire land of which I have forgotten the name) that existed before the world was created of the giant Ymer's body.

Some more simple examples are some summons, for example Odin = Oden, who was the leader of the Norse gods.

In all role playing games, and especially AD&D games there are lots of Norse mythology references.

Contributed by Andreas Vilén (290) on Feb 09, 2004.

The music playing during the final confrontation is "Die Schöpfung" ("The Creation") by Joseph Haydn, a great Austrian composer of the 18th century.

Contributed by Unicorn B. Lynx (61034) on Aug 11, 2003.

The other primary difference between the PSX and PC versions of the game is that the PC version has a much longer and more impressive version of Sephiroth's "Supernova" summoning at the end. (unfortunately, the AI tends to use it a LOT, and this causes the final battle to drag on indefinately on the PC version, since Sephiroth uses it simply as a delaying tactic to buy himself some time to heal\charge\whatever)

Around 1/3 of the way into the game (relatively), you reach the Golden Saucer and have a date with one of the characters, usually Tifa or Aeris, depending on a lot of choices you've made through the game. However, it's actually possible to go on a date with any character in your party, even Barrett. (the game has a number of amusing asides and jokes that come up if you favor an all-male party and ignore the girls)

The name of your adversary in this game is Sephiroth. Well, believe it or not, that's pure Hebrew! By the way, that's a word, not even a name, and what's more, it's plural! The singular form is "sephira", which means "counting". According to Kabbala, the Jewish mystical philosophy, sephirot are the primary powers using which God had created the world.

Contributed by Unicorn B. Lynx (61034) on Mar 16, 2002.

In the beginning of the game, right after Cloud leaves the building on fire, there's a big outdoor of a dark-haired girl and the writings "OVELESS - Y LOODY ALENTINE". This is a reference to British dreampop band My Bloody Valentine, which released its most famous album "Loveless" back in 1991. The dark-haired girl from the poster looks quite like band member Belinda Butcher. (later in the game, the name "Loveless" pops up once again, referred to as a play)

The two characters Biggs and Wedges, sometimes rendered "Vicks and Wedge" by Translators, have appeared in many Final Fantasy games (FF VI-VIII to be exact). What few people know is that their names are taken from two of the wingmen in Luke Skywalker's Red Squadron from Star Wars.

In all Final Fantasy games except for Final Fantasy 1 the mysterious character Cid has appeared doing small cameo-roles, sidekicks. The Producer of the Final Fantasy games, Hironobu Sakaguchi, once described this mysterious character as "the Yoda of the Final Fantasy series". One interesting fact to note is that almost always Cid is an engineer or mechanic.

Final Fantasy VII was voted #10 in the Top 100 Games of All Time poll published by Game Informer Magazine (Issue 100, August 2001).

Contributed by PCGamer77 (3025) on Jul 28, 2001.

Probably the most overlooked easter egg in the game (in a game which is practically overpopulated by secrets and bonuses) is the existance of another secret island apart from the one that houses the Knights of the Round Summon. Reachable only by a golden chocobo, this island is straight south from Cosmo Canyon. What's in there? the Cactuer! that's right, the same guys from Final Fantasy 3.

SPOILER

One of the main characters, Aeris, dies during the game and there were almost hundreds of rumours circulating around the net that she could be brought back to life by doing this or that (usually very complex procedures). Unfortunately none of these are true and there is no way to bring her back (plus it is vital to the story arc).

For the US release of FF7 on the playstation Squaresoft made some improvements over the original, these included the elimination of several bugs and, most importantly, the addition of some cutscenes (game engine-based, not rendered). This caused a big scandal in japan, which was left with an "inferior" version.To correct this, Squaresoft released an "international version" which was released mainly in japan but also in the states and which is simply the american version with a fourth "making of" cd added.

Final Fantasy VII was voted #36 overall in PCGamer Magazine's Readers All-Time Top 50 Games Poll (April 2000 issue).

Contributed by PCGamer77 (3025) on Jan 22, 2001.

In the Playstation version of this game, there's a live chorus singing during the final battle. In the PC conversion, the music is in midi format so only certain soundcards and drivers can support this. Without the proper soundcard/driver combination, you get no chorus and just the background midi.

The wonky thing is that you have to play all the way to the end of the game just to see if your soundcard is supported :).

Final Fantasy VII original sound version by Nobuo Uematsu soundtrack was released in 1997, and actually comes to 4 CDs. Since the tracks are all written in japanese, I won't enlist them, but there are 85 audio-tracks in total on those four cds.

Contributed by MAT (35205) on Aug 02, 2000.

Since this is Final Fantasy 7, you might be wondering where the other six went. In reality only three games in the Final Fantasy series were ever released in the US (for the nintendo and super nintendo console systems). Respectively they were the 1st, 4th, and 6th games in the series, which were re-named to 1,2, and 3 by nintendo to avoid confusing the wacky Americans. When Sony took control of the license they changed that and gave FFVII it's true sequel number.