Popular as it is today, Final Fantasy VII’s current popularityis just a mere shadow of the phenomenon that it was in the years immediately after its launch in 1997. In gaming circles, there was practically no escaping it! There was also no escaping the thick web of crazy stories rumors that enveloped it. You see, unlike today, where games are pretty much documented in their entirety for everyone to see within a few days, gamers were limited largely to only two sources of information: gaming magazines and word of mouth.
It was an age when “trust me, bro” was an acceptable source because there really was no way to verify a story. If you couldn’t get it to work, then you must not have done it right. A massive and massivelypopular game like Final Fantasy VII was the perfect target for rumors and wild stories, with some being more out there than others. They have, of course, all been more or less disproven over the intervening years, but imagine if any of the following had turned out to be true. How differently would gamers look at Final Fantasy VII today? Probably not much, but let’s check these out anyway.
1The Weapon Only Sephiroth Could Handle…Can Be Wielded by Cloud Too?
In Final Fantasy VII, every character has their signature weapon. Cloud has his Buster Sword, Barrett has his gun arm and Tifa has her fists. Sephiroth, the would-be god himself, wielded the Masamune, a sword it was said could not be effectively wielded by any other. But rumor had it that Cloud too could take it up.
There were supposedly two methods for acquiring it. The first was by getting over 10,000 points on the Speed Square ride, and the second was by collecting five pieces of Mythril from the sleeping man in a cave and giving them to the weapon merchant. As thanks, he would give Cloud Sephiroth’s legendary blade.
Unfortunately though, the closest anyone can get to having their own Masamune is acquiring the Masamune Blade replica prize from Speed Square in the Gold Saucer.
2Ruby Weapon Hates the Fire Bird Fluff
The Weapons are perhaps the hardest boss fights in Final Fantasy VII. As such, plenty of players were on the hunt for alternative means of defeating them back in the day. Naturally, rumors started to circulate that one such method existed for Ruby Weapon.
Rumor had it that players didn’t actually need to fight the boss at all in order to defeat it. If they really didn’t want to have to deal with the fight, then all they had to do was use fifty Phoenix Downs on it. Once the last down hit it, supposedly, Ruby Weapon would instantly die. It was a fun thought, but perhaps one until one actually managed to use those fifty Phoenix downs and discovered that it didn’t actually work.
3See What all the LOVELESS Hype is About
LOVELESS is an in-universe book of poetry that winds up having a significant, albeit indirect, impact on the world and how Sephiroth’s story, and thus everyone else’s, plays out. It’s in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII that fans get background on the book and how exactly it contributed to everything spiraling out of control. That’s a story for another time, though.
In the original Final Fantasy VII, in which the book (then just a poem turned stage play) made its debut, it was just the current fad among the relatively wealthy living on the Midgar saucer. Players could see bold posters for it all over the place and hear several NPCs reference it, but could not experience this supposedly awesome for themselves.
Rumor had it that players actuallycouldgo and see LOVELESS, though. All they had to do was open the empty chest in Corel Prison and then visit the theater in the Gold Saucer. Players would find that they suddenly had a ticket for the show and could then check out the play if they wanted.
Of course, despite Final Fantasy VI hosting a full opera scene and LOVELESS actually being important to Final Fantasy VII, there is no way to see the play.
4Sephiroth Joins The Fight
Despite being, you know, absolutely evil during the main course of events in Final Fantasy VII, Sephiroth nevertheless is a cool character. He’s so cool that many players found themselves hoping for a chase to play with him as a true member of their party and not just as a one-off flashback member. This wouldn’t make any sense narratively, of course, but sometimes the rule of cool supersedes all other logic. So, of course, there were supposedly various ways to get him on the team.
Rumor had it that all one had to do to get Sephiroth to join the fight against, uh, himself, was to find twelve 1/35 soldiers in and around Junon. This would apparently impress Sephiroth so much that he joins the party. If that sounds far-fetched, then perhaps impressing him by obtaining eight Statues of Sephiroth would make more sense?
Another, more involved method was speaking to an ex-Shinra employee, one that had only a one in fifty chance to spawn, to buy a key to Jenova’s chamber in th Mt. Nibel reactor. Upon going to the reactor and entering the room, a cutscene would trigger in which therealSephiroth (whom Cloud killed five years earlier) would show up and offer to help the team take down the fake version bent on destroying the world.
Finally, players could apparently impress Sephiroth into joining the team by killing the Midgar Zolom while below level fifteen and then killing another fifty monsters in the cave it was guarding without ever taking damage. It seems downright impossible, but then that would be the kind of thing that’d impress someone like Sephiroth, so maybe there’s a chance?
5Aerith’s Ghost Haunts the Church
Aerith’s death was, for a long time, one of the most shocking events in gaming. It’s no exaggeration to say that Final Fantasy VII fans were devastated by it. Up to that point in the story, she served as kind of the heart of Cloud’s party and was perhaps the character everyone most wanted to see get a happy ending. Yet it was not to be and fans were left grasping for any chance to see the kind-hearted flower girl again. Well, rumor had it that players could indeed see Aerith one last time. All they had to do was return to the Sector 5 church.
The story also said that Cloud had to be as nice to Aerith as possible before her death too. If he was, then upon entering the church, he could see a manifestation of her spirit. Run up to it, and it’ll disappear and then reappear next to the two kids hanging around. There was no further interaction beyond this, but it could have been something kind of nice. As it turns out, though, any ghost sightings were just the result of an uncommon glitch that sometimes made Aerith’s character model appear in the church, even on Disc One.
Oddly enough, though, Clouddoeseventually get a brief encounter with Aerith’s spirit in the church, but it happens in the movie:Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.
6Tifa Saves Aerith!
Wishful thinking has long served as great fuel for video game rumors. Wishing for ways to keep beloved characters alive or see an otherwise good story go differently is still something that’s alive and well in gaming today. Back in the day, though, gamers could indulge in it a bit more before having their hopes dashed, as was the case for all those who preferred Aerith over Tifa.
Rumor had it that all players had to do to keep their favorite girl alive was to be mean to the other woman in Cloud’s life: Tifa. Supposedly, choosing enough mean dialogue options and actions would result in Tifa pushing Aerith out of the way right before she dies, taking the hit and dying instead. It wouldn’t have made much sense, but at least Aerith fans would still have their girl, right?
7Aerith Lives Again!
If just catching a glimpse of Aerith’s ghost wasn’t satisfying enough, and making Tifa sacrifice herself instead wasn’t appealing, then Final Fantasy VII fans had one option left: resurrection. Indeed, the early internet was awash with methods for bringing Aerith back from the dead and getting both her and Cloud the happy ending they deserved. One of the more involved and actually believable methods at the time went something like this.
Rumor had itthat players could start the process of reviving Aerith by obtaining a few items. These included: four tissues, the Buster Sword and a mastered Revive Materia. That last one should be impossible since the materia has only three levels, but it can supposedly gain a fourth level by attaching it to the Buster Sword and getting another 800,000 AP.
This would then unlock a “Resurrect” spell. After that, players had to go to Aerith’s House, use the four tissues next to her bed to trigger a short dialogue wherein the party decides to bring her back. They figure they should start by looking at the Sector 5 church, and sure enough, Cloud has an encounter with Aerith’s ghost, who tells him to go back to the City of the Ancients. Once there, he has to place the Revive Materia on the pedestal holding the big crystal in the waterfall. This triggers another short cutscene which sends Cloud back to the church to find Aerith miraculously alive and well again. It would have made for a heck of a secret if it were true, but, alas, Final Fantasy VII is not the almost-magical game so many back in the day saw it as.
On one hand, it’s good that gamers have so much information available to them these days. With videos covering practically every aspect of a game, learning what sorts of secrets and features games do and do not have is easy. After about ten minutes of research onFinal Fantasy VII Rebirth,for example, one can know exactly what they’ve missed so far and what they should look for.
There is something to be said for the age of rumor and incomplete information, though. Sure, wild stories abounded, but they were actually part of the fun. Disproving them wasn’t easy and there was always a friend of a friend who’d actually managed to do whatever the latest rumor suggested, so games like Final Fantasy VII always felt somehow bigger and grander than they actually were. And, who knows, maybe there reallyisa way to save Aerith that is still waiting to be discovered. To learn more about all the potential possibilities, check outFF7Citadel.com,the original source for Final Fantasy VII info.
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