I kind of already covered this when I wrote my piece on Final Fantasy VII comics, but I’ll say it again. Final Fantasy VII is my favorite game in the series, which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best game of all time. Make sense? What I mean is it has flaws. While I would still give it a five out of five stars on my review scale, or a ten out of ten, or a hundred out of hundred, or whatever scale you prefer. You get the idea. What I feel though is that even the problems aren’t as critical to the game’s overall experience. It is not literally perfect as the score would indicate, but it’s pretty darn close in my heart. Nostalgia has a lot to do with it too.
Now when wrote that article I had to follow the topics introduced in the comics I found. While I still love every single one of them, there were quite a few points I couldn’t get off my chest. For example, why isn’t anyone making comics about how stupid of a character Cait Sith is? What about the fact that Cloud has a giant sword and Tifa has giant melons making it impossible for both of them to fight the way they do. These are just a couple examples of discussion points you’ll see in these new twenty-five memes. Some of them pretty obscure in their references, but if you’re a mega fan of Final Fantasy VII like me, I know you’ll appreciate them.
25 Busting Loose
Similar to the Tifa dilemma we have Cloud and his hilariously huge Buster Sword. How can a blade that big be wielded by such a man with tiny arms? I mean look at those string beans! True he was experimented on by Shinra and is thus not normal, but even so, that thing must weigh a ton. So much so that one slice should be enough to finish the job.
Cloud must be compensating for something.
Also as iconic as this sword is it’s ditched pretty fast since it’s the weakest weapon in Cloud’s arsenal. You’d think it could get tempered up later on. There are a lot of problems regarding the Buster Sword, but it’s also not as crazy as the design in Advent Children.
24 It’s The End As We Know It
Here’s a problem that is upsetting in a lot of open-world RPGs. When you have an important task that seems life-threatening, it’s hard to enjoy weird side activates like raising a bunch of chocobos. Is this really the best thing we could be doing with our time right now? The simple answer is yes, because raising these big birds helps you get powerful Materia, which then makes saving the world an easier task. Even with that logic in mind, it’s still pretty silly. Not to mention the fact that I made a lot of chocobos mate only to have their babies thrown out if they weren’t good enough. Oh yeah, and I can’t forget about the incest. Yep, Final Fantasy VII sure is an amazing game…
23 Useless Bird!
It’s a question as old as time, or at least twenty years in the making. If items like Phoenix Downs and spells like Life can resuscitate party members back from the grave then why is destruction even a concept in Final Fantasy VII? Well, I’ll tell you and it’s a point I’ve made numerous times. When a party member falls in battle they’re not really gone. They just feinted similar to how Pokémon fall in battle. If everyone should pass out well yeah then it’s Game Over. If no one is there to revive you then the enemy is probably going to go to town on the bodies. That’s just nature. So that’s why Aeris can’t be brought back to life. Thankfully, I might add.
22 Toys To Life
In every piece of content I’ve consumed in the greater Final Fantasy VII mythology, I’ve never exactly figured out how Cait Sith works. He’s a toy being controlled by Reeve, the head of Urban Development at Shinra. He’s a pretty minor character until you find out he’s been Cait Sith the whole time. Here’s the thing though. How can he control both creatures and do his job at Shinra? Sure if you have Cait Sith sit out a majority of the game it would make sense since he doesn’t have to do anything, but that’s a big if. Also for some reason, the giant Mog part of the pair is ditched in Dirge of Cerberus and he has a Scottish accent even though Reeve isn’t Scottish. Figure that one out.
21 Talk To The Hand
Of all the mini-games to appear in Final Fantasy VII, the slap fight between Tifa and Scarlet is the craziest. Sure dressing up Cloud is odd too, but let me paint this picture. Shinra captures your party after Cloud reawakens the real Sephiroth and summons giant Godzilla sized monsters to the planet’s defense. The party is then put on execution, but due to one of the aforementioned monsters attacking one of Shinra’s strongholds, Junon, Tifa is able to escape to the city’s big canon. It’s there that Scarlet chases you down in order for the foxy confrontation to commence. Can you lose? I actually have no idea. I bet not since it’s pretty clear it was only put in for titillating purposes. I can’t wait for the remake!
20 Stay Puft Marshmallow Barret
The picture says a thousand words, but for those unaware let me explain this one. Having escaped Shinra’s grasp time and time again, your crew sneaks aboard one of their ships in order to cross the ocean. How do they do that exactly? They dress up like soldiers and sailors. Two of the funniest ones are Barret who, like this meme says, looks like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
I tried to think of the most harmless thing.
He’s too precious for words and the girls are letting him have it. As Cloud, you can go along with their teasing, or you can have his back. Either way, he’s going to explode. The other odd one out is Red XIII who somehow manages to get into a pair of human clothes.
19 Hair That Can Destroy
If you play RPGs, or watch anime then you know the young spiked haired protagonist is a cliché. Cloud not only has the hair, but he’s brooding and suffers from amnesia. These three traits combined make him one heck of a 90s character. Getting back specifically to the hair though, whoa, it’s magnificent. How much gel do you think he puts in there? Maybe he uses weapon polish. Like the meme says his hair looks pretty sharp. That would have been a pretty funny albeit fourth-wall breaking Limit Break if he charged at someone with his hair. Maybe we can that via DLC in the remake. The thing about the remake is it won’t be able to capture the jaggedness of his hair the way that early polygons could.
18 A Waste Of Time
Like many, I had an emotional reaction to Aeris passing, but it wasn’t sadness for her leaving. I was instead enraged. This was the first time I experienced a main character going away in a game and for that matter my first RPG. I trained so much with her and now that she left I was ridden with shock and awe.
No, my progress!
The time I wasted leveling her up when I could have used someone else. There’s still a need to level her up when I replay the game even though I know what’s going to happen. It’s only to get her max Limit Break though. The completionist in me wills it. Otherwise, I couldn’t care less to have her in my party.
17 A Heavy Burden
Even on Tifa’s short model, or in battle character, you can tell she has been pretty lucky genetically. It's not wildly distracting until you see the more detailed models. Suddenly, we're left wonder what's going on with physics here (is this a Team Ninja video game situation?)
But forgetting that stuff, the real thing here is those suspenders. That is no replacement for a belt, how the heck are you supposed to fight with latched on straps being the only thing holding your trousers —or in this case, skirt— in place. This is one of those things you just need to chalk up to being anime, and move on.
16 A Bromance Blossoming
There’s a point toward the end of the first disc where you can take Aeris, Tifa, Yuffie, or Barret on a date at Gold Saucer. It all depends on choices you make during conversations and battle arrangements. The easiest two are Aeris and Tifa, naturally, while Yuffie and Barret take some effort. There’s even a trophy in the PS4 port of the PC version for going out with Barret and I can see why.
Love is in the air.
You almost literally have to jump through hoops to get it, but if you do you’ll be in for some laughs. This is the best blossoming bromance ever. I didn’t know about it when I originally played and even though I love this game. I learn new things every time I replay it.
15 Look Out RuPaul
One of the most memorable and strangest parts in Final Fantasy VII revolves around the Don Cornello stealth mission. Aeris and Cloud see Tifa has gotten herself into some hot water and the only way they can break inside is if Cloud dresses up like a girl. This leads players to get a dress, perfume, and even underwear. It’s a bizarre list of fetch quests and you better believe I prided myself in getting the most salacious stuff. If I was going to dress up like a girl I needed to look pretty. Despite there being several options Cloud always looked the same. I hope in the remake they make these choices more customizable. I need to know what that underwear looks like. For, uh, curiosity’s sake.
14 AVALANCHE!
Here’s something you may not think about. Barret, Cloud, and Tifa are all pretty destructive. Not resistance members, or something more seemingly noble. No, these guys blow up reactors causing who knows how much wanton destruction to both Midgar and its people. Sure it’s for a good cause, but you can’t take the lives of innocent people and call it a day all in the name of justice.
Now it’s not like Shinra isn’t equally dirty if not more so. It’s just one of those things that’s funny to think about in hindsight and maybe even a little screwed up. They sort of give up terrorism for more normal hero stuff after Midgar thankfully. I wonder how clear they will be about it in the remake.
13 Marketing Geniuses
My first introduction to Final Fantasy VII was through TV. It was even before I knew what Final Fantasy, or RPGs were. The entire commercial was comprised solely of CG cutscenes from the game, which was a brilliant marketing move on their part. You can still watch it, here. I know it looks dated now, but it blew my ten-year-old mind back in 1997. Is this what graphics looked like on the PS1? Whoa! I had to have it, but like most kids, I wanted everything I saw remotely interesting on TV. That’s why marketing men and women get the big bucks. So this meme is spot on. We were promised lifelike CG, at the time that is, but got a mess of blocky polygons instead.
12 Protect Yourself
There’s a whole mess of plot points in Final Fantasy VII that are pretty crazy. It was trying to push the boundaries in terms of storytelling for not only its own series, but also video games as a whole. It wanted to be gritty and more realistic so accompanying that feeling was a slew of more mature scenarios. One of the more central ones regarded Cloud’s past.
Cloud is the Armin Tamzarian of Final Fantasy.
You were led to believe that he was an EX-SOLDIER member who trained right alongside the infamous Sephiroth. It turns out you were indeed there for a majority of his flashbacks, but he was just a regular grunt. He had stolen the identity of his best friend, Zack, who met his untimely demise. We’ll get more into that later.
11 Zaaaaack!
Aeris was a shocking demise but again, not sad to me in the least. What I did choke up over was learning all about Zack. Now as I mentioned earlier Cloud took on his identity. Not for any malicious intent. See both of them ditched Shinra, but were then captured and experimented on. Zack broke out of captivity and grabbed Cloud too, but unfortunately, he was practically a vegetable at that point. Regardless of which Zack carried on with Cloud by his side even up to his last breath wherein he fended off hordes of Shinra soldiers as they filled him with led. Cloud finally came out of his funk only to find Zack had passed, which screwed up his brain and made him take his identity? It doesn’t completely make sense, but it tears me up every time.
10 Are You Afraid Of The Sephiroth?
If you grew up in the 90s then this joke may have you busting a gut. If not, well let me explain. To appeal to an older demographic Nickelodeon created Snick, a programming block dedicated to more teen-oriented shows. One of these initial shows was Are You Afraid of the Dark, which was similar in format to anthology shows like The Twilight Zone and Tales from the Crypt.
Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society.
A group of campers would gather around a fire to tell scary stories. They called themselves The Midnight Society. I’ll admit it right here that I never watched it as a kid because it was too scary. Now it’s super corny and I’m embarrassed to have ever been scared of it.
9 Coal Mine Blues
I had always thought he grew up in Midgar until you make it to North Corel just outside of Gold Saucer wherein you find out how he’s been shunned for complicated reasons I won’t get into now. Well later on when Cloud is in a comatose state, Cid takes over. It’s around this time where you have to go around and collect the Huge Materia before Shinra does. One of these tasks lies in stopping an out of control train from smashing into said mining town, which can actually affect the game. The first time through, I failed to stop this crazy train and the game made me feel awful for it. What better way to express that sorrow than with a Dethklok crossover meme?
8 Mommy Issues
Perhaps this needs a bit of explanation too. First of all Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo were all Sephiroth clones and the main antagonists in Advent Children. As cool and tough as they acted there were several scenes where they started crying and calling for their mom, which in this case is the creepy alien thing known as Jenova.
Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo are worse than Tidus.
So I thought to myself, hmm, who else cries out for their mother a lot? A child from a TV show, or cartoon would be too easy and then it hit me. Buster Bluth from Arrested Development would be a perfect partner for this split mockery. I don’t often call myself a genius often, but when I do I mean it.
7 Vincent TheVampire
Despite the fact that Tetsuya Nomura worked on the character designs for this game, everyone is actually pretty normal. Nomura wouldn’t go full on crazy until he got his hands on Final Fantasy X and Kingdom Hearts. He let his zipper enthusiasm shine in those games I tell you what. Yet there was one character where he let his freak fly in regards to Final Fantasy VII: Vincent Valentine. Like the meme says he basically looks like Dracula albeit with a more modern flair. He wears a suit with extra clothes flying out, boots with golden pointed tips, has a billowing red torn cape, and a golden claw. Oh yeah and he literally sleeps in a coffin and can transform into monsters. Need any more proof?
6 Delayed Expectations
The 20th anniversary of Final Fantasy VII’s original launch on the PS1 has come and gone. The next big celebration won’t be until 2022. That means we probably aren’t going to see the remake anytime soon. First, it was a PS3 tech demo and not a real game. Then it actually got announced as a real genuine remake during Sony’s E3 presentation in 2015.
I’ll believe it when I’m clutching it in my hands.
On top of that, it was revealed CyberConnect2, who you may know from the Naruto UltimateNinja Storm games, was collaborating on it. This gave me hope it would be here within a few years and yet here we are with delays issued seemingly every month. Will we ever get it?
