Final Fantasy 7 fans are still pinching themselves almost a year later over how incredible Final Fantasy 7 Remake turned out. The recreation of the iconic Midgar setting is jaw-dropping every step of the way. What was once a city made of 2D backgrounds is now a gorgeous 3D environment rendered with the fidelity of an animated film.
Along with this recreation comes a slew of tiny details many people might have missed. Either these nuances were small or you did not notice them because you did not play the original. If you are a part of the latter, there is plenty of time to play the 1997 PS1 classic before more Final Fantasy 7 games come out.
10 The Opening Shows Midgar’s Beginnings
The opening scene shows a bunch of shots showcasing various everyday lives in Midgar. However, one might have missed that this sequence shows the city as it is being built.
A child in the Sector 7 playground gazes upon the Mako Reactor, but there is no plate above them. This is really the only glimpse we ever see of Midgar from before the days of the plate. Maybe future stories will further explore this time period.
9 Loveless Easter Egg
A billboard in Sector 8 is advertising a play called Loveless. While this seems like an irrelevant detail, anybody who played Crisis Core will know its importance. Genesis, the game’s antagonist, was obsessed with this performance and often quoted it.
Crisis Core is an important piece of the Final Fantasy 7 puzzle, so its lack of availability on anything other than a UMD is curious. Perhaps a re-release or remake will come out in the future.
8 You Never Go To The Upper Plate In The Original
Because Final Fantasy 7 Remake takes what is originally an eight to ten-hour chunk of the original game and expands it into a 40-hour long adventure, the developers were able to take the player to places they previously never saw.
In interviews, the developers made it a point to showcase the upper parts of the plate. This gave players a small glimpse at how the middle class lived when compared to the slums. You never see this in the original game.
7 Roche Is A Brand New Character And The Bike Chase Is Also New
Cloud encounters Roche early on in the game; you fight him and then he pretty much disappears. We imagine he will show up again in the future. He is such a mystery because he was not in the original game.
Additionally, the first bike chase was absent from the source material which only featured the minigame during the climactic escape from Midgar. He is pretty much the only completely new character in the game.
6 Banora White Advertisement
Banora White is a fruit found only in Banora. They are mostly connected to Crisis Core. In the sector 1 train station from Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s opening moments, you see an ad for Banora White juice which is yet another connection between it and the PSP spin-off.
Given the way Final Fantasy 7 Remake ends, Zack Fair will undoubtedly become a more important character in future entries. Whether Banora White shows up remains to be seen.
5 NPCs Look Like NPCs From The Original
It is astounding how faithful this recreation of Midgar is to the original PS1 game. Even the NPCs resemble the older characters. It must have been quite an undertaking for the artists to take models made out of countable polygons and update them for modern hardware.
Additionally, a character like Johnny becomes an important piece of comedic relief in Final Fantasy 7 Remake where he only had a minor part in the first title.
4 It Is Now Called “Shinra” And Not “Shin-Ra”
In the original Final Fantasy 7, most of the Shinra art in Midgar spells it out as “Shin-Ra” despite the character dialog constantly spelling it without the hyphen and capitalized “R”. In the remake, the stylized spelling has been completely eliminated.
Was this an artistic choice or is there a deeper story behind this change? Knowing Final Fantasy 7, it is very possible for it to have wild overarching implications.
3 The Colosseum Is New
Wall Market is a highlight of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. It is highly familiar to fans of the original, but several things are expanded upon or added. Don Corneo’s colosseum, for example, is completely new.
The developers were also extremely creative in putting the classic Hell House enemy into this segment as a boss. It makes sense to add the colosseum since the feature is a standard of many JRPGs but does not come into play in Final Fantasy 7 until the Gold Saucer.
2 The Shinra Museum
There are many details about the Shinra Museum inside Shinra HQ you are likely to miss if you carelessly walk through it. Be sure to look at every part of the exhibit to get your full money’s worth.
Inside, you see young pictures of President Shinra which also includes a Final Fantasy 10 easter egg and a reference to the space program which foreshadows Cid Highwind. Walking through it is every fan’s dream.
1 Stamp Looks Different In The Ending
Stamp is a dog mascot that Shinra uses from time to time. He is introduced in Final Fantasy 7 Remake and even has a theme song that sounds like something out of a 1970s commercial. Curiously enough, Stamp looks completely different in the ending where Zack Fair survives what was once a fatal encounter.
This small detail insinuates different timelines or worlds merging together. Whatever the case, we cannot wait to see how it is all explained in the future.
