50 Fun Facts About Final Fantasy VII

In which year was Final Fantasy VII released?

It came out in Japan on January 31 and in North America that September.

On which console was Final Fantasy VII originally released?

The CD-ROM format won out over cartridges after tests on Nintendo's hardware failed.

Who is the game's main protagonist, a mercenary with a giant sword?

His original design had slicked-back black hair before the spiky blond look was settled on.

Cloud claims to be a former 1st Class member of which elite Shinra fighting force?

He was actually an infantryman who was never accepted; the memories were his friend Zack's.

What is the name of the eco-terrorist group Cloud joins at the start of the game?

It is led by Barret Wallace and aims to bring down Shinra so the Planet can recover.

In which city is the Shinra Electric Power Company headquartered?

The game's epilogue shows its ruins covered in greenery 500 years later.

What is the name of the flow of spiritual energy that gives life to the Planet?

Sakaguchi chose life as a theme after his mother died during development of Final Fantasy III.

Which carefree flower merchant is one of the last surviving Cetra?

Her name was meant as a blend of "air" and "earth"; the original English release called her Aeris.

Who is the brazen but fatherly leader of the eco-terrorist group?

He and Tifa are the first two party members to fight alongside Cloud.

Which martial artist is Cloud's childhood friend?

She was created as a second heroine once the team decided to kill Aerith.

Which party member is an intelligent feline from a tribe that protects the planet?

He appears in the epilogue with two cubs looking over the ruins of Midgar.

Which Shinra staff member secretly controls the robotic cat Cait Sith?

Cait Sith is a fortune-teller who rides a giant stuffed moogle.

Which optional party member is a young ninja and skilled Materia thief?

She and Vincent were meant to be central but were made optional due to time constraints.

What is the name of the covert branch of Shinra's security forces?

The mobile prequel Before Crisis follows their activities six years before the game.

What is the name of the hostile alien life-form from which Sephiroth was created?

It landed on the Planet 2,000 years earlier and nearly wiped out the Cetra with a virus.

Which member of Shinra's elite force was Aerith's first love and a key figure in Cloud's backstory?

Scenario writer Kazushige Nojima created him to resolve Cloud's split personality.

Which spell does Sephiroth intend to cast with the Black Materia?

He plans to absorb the Lifestream as it rushes to heal the wound and become a god.

Which mad Shinra scientist is revealed to be Sephiroth's biological father?

He also experimented on Cloud and Zack for four years with Jenova cells and Mako.

In which town did Sephiroth learn of his origins and go insane five years before the game?

The OVA Last Order, bundled with Advent Children DVDs, retells the town's destruction.

Who takes over the megacorporation after Sephiroth kills the President?

He seemingly dies when Weapon attacks the Shinra building late in the game.

What are the character-specific super moves charged by taking enemy hits called?

Tetsuya Nomura designed them as an evolution of Final Fantasy VI's Desperation Attacks.

How many years after the main story is the epilogue with Red XIII set?

The ruins are covered in greenery, showing the Planet has healed.

For which console was the game originally planned as a 2D title?

The team shelved an early prototype to help finish Chrono Trigger.

Which monster's 2,000 polygons choked the Nintendo 64 test version?

The game would also have needed an estimated thirty 64DD discs to run.

How many 64DD discs was it estimated the game would have needed on Nintendo's hardware?

CD-ROM storage was a major reason production moved to Sony's console.

Which other 1995 game did the team pause development to help finish?

Discussions resumed in 1995 once it was done.

Who was the game's producer and the series' creator?

He wrote the initial plot and proposed the Materia system for deeper character customisation.

Who directed the game?

He had been one of the directors of Final Fantasy VI and wanted Aerith's death to feel sudden and empty.

Who composed the game's score?

He had been sole composer on the six previous entries and treated this one like a film score.

Who was the game's main character designer?

He won the job with handwritten, illustrated proposals and suggested killing off the heroine.

Which artist created the logo artwork, based on the apocalyptic spell's image?

Overseas exhibitions kept him from a bigger role; the logo's green came from Midgar's lighting.

Who joined after Bahamut Lagoon to write the scenario and unify the team's ideas?

His biggest contributions were Cloud's memories and split personality, and the character of Zack.

Where was Sakaguchi's first draft of the story set, in the year 1999?

The draft's heroes were chased by a hot-blooded detective named Joe; the setting was reused for Parasite Eve.

Which 1998 game reused the abandoned New York setting from the early draft?

The finished game kept the futuristic shift, dropping the series' medieval fantasy trappings.

Nomura modelled the Cloud–Sephiroth rivalry on which two legendary swordsmen?

Cloud is Musashi and Sephiroth is Kojirō.

Which final-battle track was the series' first with high-quality digitised vocals?

Uematsu built it from two weeks of unconnected musical phrases, a method he had never used before.

Which Stravinsky work inspired the classical side of the final-battle vocal track?

Uematsu paired it with late-60s and early-70s rock to get a destructive impact.

Which company published the 1998 PC port in North America and Europe?

Fresh off Tomb Raider, they chose a trapezoidal box to make it stand out in stores.

What unusual shape did the PC port's publisher choose for its box?

Forecast at 100,000 units, the port went on to sell over a million.

Who was the sole translator on the original English localisation?

Seth Luisi led a team of about fifty, with no professional editors and a fixed-width font to fight.

What name was Aerith mistakenly given in the original English release?

The slip came from poor communication between the localisation staff and the QA team.

Which scene did Sony publicly consider cutting from the North American release?

Fan petitions followed, and the developer said it would never let Sony localise the game.

Which magazine's quote "quite possibly the greatest game ever made" went on the back of the jewel case?

EGM's four reviewers all gave it 9.5 out of 10.

The CGI film sequel Advent Children is set how long after the game?

It was the first Compilation title announced but the second released, after Before Crisis.

Which PSP action RPG in the Compilation centres on Zack's past?

Its 2022 remaster, Reunion, is treated as a prequel to the Remake project.

What is the title of the third part of the remake trilogy, following Remake and Rebirth?

It is in development for Switch 2, PS5, Windows and Xbox Series X/S.

Cloud joined which Nintendo crossover fighting game as DLC in December 2015?

A Midgar stage came with him; Sephiroth followed in Ultimate in December 2020.

A Chinese company made an unofficial 2D version of the game for which console?

Shenzhen Nanjing Technology's bootleg dropped some side quests.

As of September 2025, roughly how many units has the original game sold worldwide?

It was already the best-selling entry in the series by 2005.

Who wrote the late-game sequence inside the Planet and Cloud and Tifa's talk before the last battle?

Brought in late, he wrote to his own taste without consulting anyone, which he later regretted.