8 Final Fantasy VII Story Beats That Still Feel Way Ahead of Their Time

Final Fantasy VII was the first time I really thought of video games as this futuristic medium. Despite the box monster characters, the environments were just wild to behold. Midgar, specifically, was just mind-blowing to me. The way it mixed this sort of futuristic-looking yet also slum-looking city that just felt so alive and new, it just set the stage for what would become one of the most iconic games of all time.

More than just the environments, though, it was the story, the characters, and those oh-so good CGI cutscenes. So much of what went down in this game from a story perspective was just unheard of and became the blueprint for so many games going forward.

We're going to check out some of the story segments in Final Fantasy VII that were far ahead of anything else, and it still feels incredible even today.

8 The Bombing Mission

Getting to the Action

So many games these days struggle to get out of the gate. Hell, the best ones face this issue, regardless of their complete experience. Games like Red Dead Redemption 2, Metaphor: ReFantazio, and 2025's Kingdom Come Deliverance: 2 all struggle mightily to grip you in the opening segments. Final Fantasy VII immediately throws you into a thrilling mission, having to blow up what seems to be a nuclear reactor of some kind for a job.

It's a mature theme established right then and there, and your first battle comes immediately, giving you the thrilling soundtrack and tight turn-based combat that would go on to define an entire generation of games. It's something that the JRPG genre in particular really struggles with, and Final Fantasy VII immediately gives you the drive to go forward and doesn't really let up throughout the massive adventure.

7 Cloud Dress Up

Subverting Expectations

When Final Fantasy VII starts, I think the last thing you're expecting is the cold, badass mercenary with a sword the size of a small car to be in a dress within a few hours. Yet, that's exactly what the game does. In order to work your way into the mansion of Don Corneo, you've got to dress up as a woman, and it remains one of the more fun and clever story beats in a game full of them.

In a very masculine centric gaming industry at the time, this moment felt distinctly ahead of its time, and ahead of today's time as well. Allowing its confident, too cool for school main character to do anything necessary to get the mission done, even if it meant his humiliation in the process. It remains one of the game's most memorable moments, and the remake trilogy treated it with some bombastic flair to make it even better.

6 Motorcycle Madness

Road Rage

Final Fantasy was always a series draped in deep fantasy worlds that generally were medieval-inspired, with some aspects of science fiction and modern tech thrown in on occasion. Then came Final Fantasy VII and said, "We're actually just whatever we want this to be." And nothing exemplifies that more than the motorcycle chase. It feels so modern and even futuristic with the action on display. Nobody playing the original Final Fantasy could have possibly thought a scene like this would take place.

But take place it does, and it's a thrilling little minigame of sorts that caps off an absolutely epic segment of the game. It felt futuristic and like a game from a few years into the future. While the controls were modest, the CGI scenes supporting the segment just dripped with an anime sense of cool that no game really managed to capture beforehand. It was an amazing way to cap off the Midgar segment and send us hurtling into the rest of the iconic experience.

5 Cloud's Coma

The Main Character Gets Benched

When Cloud falls into the Lifestream in Final Fantasy VII, it's a stunning moment, to say the least. When he's rescued, he's far from his normal self, essentially in a Mako-induced coma for all intents and purposes. It puts the main character and main focus of the story on the sideline, allowing Cid to take over as the de facto leader and really giving time to shine the light on some of the side characters that don't get too much focus.

It's an awesome move for the story and one that builds the already fantastic cast to the absolute hero status they're all known for today. What game does this nowadays? I haven't seen a main character get effectively benched like this for a solid portion of the game in ages. Probably the most recent would be one from a French developer and that game, of course, is inspired by Final Fantasies of old. It's a bold move that really paid off, and it's something most games are still afraid to do today.

4 The Trail of Blood

Something Sephiroth This Way Comes

Before that moment, Final Fantasy had been a series with its share of dark moments for sure, but this turned the page in a way not many were ready for. It was a scene out of a horror movie as you finally reach the top of Shinra Tower for the first time to find President Shinra dead, and from what? Well, it's not quite clear, but it's something very dangerous and something that Cloud clearly knows a lot about.

The trail of blood was a simply chilling moment in a game that, up to this point, had been about a group of ragtag environmental terrorists trying to make a difference in the world. This moment was a game-changer. It wasn't just the corporations that AVALANCHE had to worry about, but something far, far more terrifying. It was an incredible tone setter for the rest of the game and one of the more unforgettable moments in the series history that tons of games have tried to copy since. Metal Gear Solid, the following year, for example.

3 Fake it Till You Make it

Cloud's Living a Lie

Cloud comes off as a cold-hearted badass for much of the game, and to the player, that's just who he is. However, as you advance in the story, you discover that this is all a front. He is psychologically damaged beyond our wildest dreams and is basically cosplaying as the true first-class SOLDIER, Zack Fair, his friend who died.

It's an incredible moment that restructures the entire game's events to that point and also makes you realize why Aerith is so enamored with Cloud. He's faking it. He's not this badass, but someone who is so convinced that he is this badass that his real personality is shrouded and lost to himself. This moment feels incredible, as it tackles mental health in a mature way while also using a ton of character development in the process.

It was such a wild story move and feels like one that most games would be terrified to touch in today's gaming age. Social media backlash might've torn this one apart back in the day, and may once again when that moment hits in the third game in the trilogy, but it still feels like Square is the only developer to try it.

2 Sephiroth's Fateful Plunge

Aerith's Sacrifice

While characters in video games had died in prior games, and even prior Final Fantasy games, nothing comes close to the death of Aerith. Aerith was such an innocent character, the flower girl from the opening who falls for Cloud, and harbors a deep sadness for an event in the past that affects her every move. And then the reveal of her status as one of the Ancients, and her last-ditch attempt to try and save the world from the oncoming summoning of Meteor is met in the most painful of ways.

Just as she's mid-prayer for the Holy spell, Sephiroth comes falling from the ceiling, Masamune prepared to strike and delivers the most earth-shattering assassination in video game history. Aerith was already a tragic character, and having her get killed off on top of it, was just endlessly sad. It was such a defining moment for the character and Sephiroth as well, marking him as truly an unforgivable antagonist.

It's a moment that has stuck in the minds of gamers for almost 30 years now. It's a tactic that no game really uses to this day, as companies are terrified of player backlash. Imagine Reddit being around when this moment hit? It would've spontaneously combusted. It's a shame the remake trilogy messed with this moment at all, and in the process created a much less impactful scene than the original did.

1 You Lose

Meteor Hits

Very rarely do you see the epic mission to save the world fail, and yet, that's exactly what happens at the end of Final Fantasy VII. Sephiroth summons Meteor, and Holy appears to fight it off, but the power struggle between the two appears to completely wipe out humanity in the process. Now, yes, the movie confirms that people did survive with some impressive retconned nonsense, but we're talking about the standalone game story itself, and in that version, it appears that everyone was killed off in the resulting explosion.

This move was just wild, and it feels like every game since has been truly terrified of giving an ending like this. Sure, games give the "bad ending" plenty of times, but so rarely do they actually give you an ending where everything was for naught. In a way, I guess the party succeeds here because you do see that Red XIII survived along with his pack, but it seems that life elsewhere on the planet is completely gone. It's a move that most games going forward would not dare to try, and Final Fantasy VII did it 3 decades ago.