10 Final Fantasy VII Moments That Changed RPG Storytelling

Final Fantasy VII is one of the most influential JRPGs of all time, in part, due to how it changed the genre's potential for storytelling forever.

Starting off in the slums of Midgard, Cloud and his party of lovable band of misfits end up exploring all corners of the world, soaring high in the skies and the deep ocean to discover a way to defeat Sephiroth and stop Meteor from destroying the world. Along the way, you'll form a deep bond with your crew of characters, whose stories redefined what we thought possible with characters in JRPGs up until this point.

Final Fantasy VII is also home to some of the most iconic narrative moments in any video game, pushing the envelope of the medium and revolutionizing the potential for RPG storytelling for years to come.

Here are 10 of the most iconic Final Fantasy VII moments that forever changed RPG storytelling forever, and are still revolutionary to this day.

10 Aerith's Death

A Plot Twist of All Time

Of course, Aerith's death is not only one of the most popular events within the game, but it's arguably one of the most popular story moments in any game ever.

Up until your party reaches the City of the Ancient's, Aerith has been a strong-hearted and calming presence within the party. It isn't until she goes missing and starts acting unlike herself that this feeling of dread starts to loom. Once reaching the Forgotten City and reuniting with Aerith, Cloud is taken over by Sephiroth once more, who's barely able to resist the control to avoid hurting Aerith. Before getting a moment to rest, Sephiroth suddenly descends from the sky, stabbing Aerith and killing her.

It's one of the most tragic rug pulls in all of gaming. Up until this point in the game, Aerith has been one of the most important characters and seemed like an invaluable member of the party. Her death is one of the series' most bold story choices from both a narrative and gameplay perspective, and was, for sure, one that had everyone guessing if anyone in your party was safe.

9 The Gold Saucer Date

Player Interactions Matter

Romance options are now considered an expected component of RPGs, but at the time Final Fantasy VII released, it was still but a mere wish for most players. In the game, there's a hidden affection mechanic that slowly builds as you interact with other characters in the game by talking to them or adding them to your party.

Aerith will be the default option to bring on a Gold Saucer date for the majority of players, but if you're careful with how you interact with other characters, it's possible to have scenes with Tifa, Yuffie, or even Barrett. The scenes in question can be quite touching, so you're not really missing out, depending on whoever you get.

It's a small slice of life moment throughout the game, but it marked an important step in what gamers could expect out of companion relationships in a game.

8 The Nibelheim Incident

A Flashback Done Right

After making your way to Kalm, Cloud will regale his history with Sephiroth and how he was a witness to the great Soldier's fall at Nibelheim.

For a brief moment, we see a meager Cloud team up with Sephiroth, whose strength is far beyond our comprehension at this point in the game. We also see Sephiroth as someone who's a bit friendly, if not distant. But after we reach the Mako reactor deep in the mountains, and see Shinra's experiments with the Jenova cells, we see Sephiroth become consumed with learning more, eventually discovering his origins and reducing the nearby town to ashes.

What makes this interaction so important is that it's the only isolated incident where we learn anything about Sephiroth, really. While we may have brief interactions with him later (and it's reasonable to interpret those moments as Jenova using Sephiroth's form as a puppet), they don't really reveal more about who he is. In truth, he mostly devolves into a generic villain who wants to destroy the world, and that's it.

Without this flashback moment, Sephiroth would go down as just another Final Fantasy villain who's evil just for evil's sake. But it's this momentary flash of humanity in a villain that becomes so inhuman that makes him such an iconic antagonist within gaming.

7 Cloud Crossdressing to Break Into Don Corneo's Mansion

A Moment That Hasn't Aged Well, But Was Important at the Time

The Don Corneo section in the original Final Fantasy VII is one of the silliest moments in the game, fully embracing the genre's absurdity. While it's unfortunately very dated and a product of its time, it did lay the foundation for a far more empowering scene in its eventual remake a few years ago.

After coming up with a plot to infiltrate the seedy Don Corneo's mansion to uncover a plot by Shinra and save Tifa, Cloud and Aerith traipse around the slums to find the nicest outfit they can to seduce the slum lord. Of course, Cloud can't go in dressed as his usual Buster Sword-wielding self, and reluctantly lets Aerith dress him up as a woman to gain entrance into the mansion.

It's a silly moment in a game that splits fans over the problematic framing, but it was also one of the rare mainstream games to include any LGBTQ themes throughout. So, while it's a moment that hasn't aged the best, it was a moment in a popular game that might have been a player's first introduction to LGBTQ representation, which makes it a fairly important part of the game's legacy regardless.

6 Zack Fair Twist

An Existential Crisis and a Half

While we never get to meet Zack in Final Fantasy 7, the character is a looming presence who haunts the game's narrative. We learn hints about the character throughout the game while talking to Aerith, and visiting his hometown of Gongaga. It isn't until far later in the game that we learn Cloud's retelling of the Nibelheim incident is untrue and not how the scenario actually played out.

As Tifa saves Cloud from the Lifestream, we learn that it was actually Zack Fair, the real First-Class Soldier who joined Sephiroth on the mission, and that Cloud was a simple infantryman who survived. However, thanks to Mako shenanigans, Cloud's memories begin to merge with Zack's, which leads to a pretty big identity crisis for the spiky-haired protagonist later on.

It's rare for JRPG's to present the main character you play as an unreliable narrator like this, which shows that the devs were not afraid of taking big swings and trusted the audience to stick with them throughout.

5 Sector 7 Falls

Everyone You Know Dies

The Sector 7 plate falling is what really brings Final Fantasy VII's first act together. Until this point, the game's first half is mostly a light-hearted romp (Don Corneo implications aside), with your party using the Avalanche bar as its central hub to unwind. It's also here you'll get to talk to other Avalanche members, Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge, until they're cruelly ripped away from you.

It also doesn't hurt that, up until this point, Shinra has been shown as nothing more than cartoon villains. That's why when the Sector 7 plate begins to fall, and we see our allies and town massacred, it comes as a complete shock.

This exact moment marks a huge tonal shift for the rest of the game. While there are still moments of lightheartedness throughout the story, the game arguably becomes far darker after this moment, and does not give players a moment to breathe.

4 Vincent and Yuffie as Significant Optional Characters

Iconic Side Characters You Could Entirely Miss

Vincent and Yuffie's characters are unfortunate victims of not having enough time to be developed into the game as fully fleshed-out characters. It's entirely possible to miss out on their arcs and play style, should players either completely miss their interactions, or not know the correct dialogue boxes to pick from when trying to recruit them.

However, despite their limited roles within the game's main story, their inclusions still carry significant weight in the game. Yuffie, for instance, reveals plenty of significant lore regarding the Shinra-Wutai war, and opens up several unique sequences while exploring the region.

Vincent is also an important character in understanding more about Sephiroth's backstory and the depravity of Hojo's experiments in creating him. After discovering Lucrecia's cave with the submarine, we learn that Vincent still pines for Sephiroth's biological mother, Lucrecia, a Shira scientist. It's here that we discover that Sephiroth is the byproduct of Hojo and Lucrecia, who willingly agreed to let Sephiroth become an experiment for the Jenova project.

Without this key sequence, we wouldn't get the gross reveal that Hojo does, in fact, pull, but we also come to learn how Sephiroth was doomed from the start.

3 Barret's Backstory with Dyne

Heartbreaking Sequence

Barret is one of the game's more polarizing characters, especially within its first few hours. The Avalanche leader is quick to temper and remains adversarial towards us for most of the game's first half.

It isn't until we reach the Cosmic Saucer and are left stranded in the North Corel desert that we get to learn more about Barret's past and his contempt for Shinra. We come to learn that Barrett is seemingly the sole survivor of a Shinra attack, who razed his hometown to make way for a Mako reactor. During the incident, Barrett and his friend Dyne are shot at, and Barrett loses his arm trying to pull Dane up to safety.

While it seems like Dyne fell to his death, we learn that he also fixed his arm up with a mechanical gun, and has driven himself mad with vengeance for what Shinra did to him. In a heartbreaking confrontation, Barrett is forced to kill his old friend to end his suffering.

It's one of many moments throughout the game that highlight how great Final Fantasy VII's cast is, and why letting everyone have their own moment to shine makes the game's narrative far stronger.

2 Red XIII Meets His Dad

AKA the Saddest Scene in the Game

Red XIII, or Nanaki, as we come to know, has one of the more tragic backgrounds in the game. Despite putting on the appearance of a wizened sage, offering the party wisdom about the world, we come to know that our favorite dog-like cat is effectively a teenager by his race's standards.

As we reach his home in the Cosmo Canyon, we learn more about Nanaki, his people, and their conflict with the ethereal Gi. More than 45 years before the events of the game, the Gi attempted to attack the Cosmo Canyon using underground tunnels, but were sealed deep within. It's around this time that Nanaki's father, Seto, went missing, leading him to think of his dad as a coward.

However, after fighting our way through the cavern and defeating the Gi's leader, we come to learn the tragic fate of Nanaki's father. After failing with peace talks, Seto fought to stave off the Gi's impending invasion, but was turned to stone due to their petrifying arrows. What follows is the saddest sequence in any game, as Nanaki howls at the sky in grief for his dad, as his petrified body cries, hearing his son learn the truth.

1 Cloud Enters a Coma

Tifa Takes Charge

One of the most surprising moments in Final Fantasy VII comes in Disc 2, where Cloud suddenly leaves the party after suffering a mental breakdown, causing him to collapse into the Lifestream.

This causes the party to carry on without Cloud for a time, as the party has to escape from Shinra after being captured in Junon. After escaping (and having an iconic slap fight on top of a cannon's barrel), the party reunites with a catatonic Cloud, who's unable to rejoin.

It's here that Tifa also leaves the party to take care of him, leaving you down two members who you may have sunk a fair amount of time building up at this point.

It's rare for any game to abandon its leading man for such a long period of time. Thanks to the game having such a strong cast of side characters, though, this section of the game is a welcome change of pace in helping your party members shine all the more.