http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/finalfantasyvii.png
[[caption-width:330:"...What a crew."]]

The seventh entry in the unspeakably popular ''FinalFantasy'' series.

Easily one of the most famous games of all time, ''FinalFantasyVII'' helped extend console {{RPG}}s into the mainstream gamer community in the west (for better or worse, depending on which fandom you ask) during the [=PlayStation=]'s reign.

Considering how lucrative it has proven, one [[UrbanLegendOfZelda prevalent rumor]] is SquareEnix is going to do a remake of the game for a next generation console or PSP. Final Fantasy VII director [[http://www.psu.com/Square-talks-Final-Fantasy-VII-remake--a0003547-p0.php Yoshinori Kitase]] stated in an interview that such a project could be undertaken, but only if the original team could be reunited to work on the remake (which is incredibly unlikely as they have since been assigned different projects). Still, announcing the release of the ''FinalFantasyVII'' remake is a very popular (to the point of being overdone) AprilFoolsDay joke. It ''has'', however, been released in all three regions (finally) on the Playstion Network DLC service, for US$10 instead of the normal US$6 of PSOne Classics. Though, given the size, and the fact that Amazon was charging $45 for a used copy, it's hard to begrudge that.

'''Characters:'''
* Cloud Strife: [[DesignatedHero Protagonist]]. Former member of [[SuperSoldier SOLDIER]] ([[TomatoInTheMirror or ''is'' he?]]). [[{{BFS}} Has a very large sword]]. ''[[FoeYay Really hates]]'' Sephiroth.
* Aerith Gainsborough: [[StaffChick Magic-using]] InnocentFlowerGirl. [[LastOfHisKind Last of her kind]]. [[PluckyGirl Rather headstrong]]. Possible love interest of Cloud. Her name is similar to "Earth". [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Also known as "Aeris" in the original English translation]], [[RetCon but that's not so anymore]]. [[ItWasHisSled Dies just before]] [[YouShouldKnowThisAlready the halfway point.]]
* Tifa Lockhart: [[BoobsOfSteel Large chested]], [[TallDarkAndBishoujo dark-haired]], [[SheFu very flexible]] [[ActionGirl martial arts master]]. Cloud's [[FirstGirlWins main love interest]] and [[VictoriousChildhoodFriend childhood friend]], member of AVALANCHE, and Bartender.
* Barret Wallace: {{Badass}}. Wields an ArmCannon. Leader of [[LaResistance AVALANCHE]]. [[ScaryBlackMan One of the few black men in the world]]. PapaWolf towards his daughter Marlene and the group. Another possible [[GayOption Love interest]], if [[AllThereInTheManual you're careful]].
* Red XIII: AKA Nanaki. Close to the [[LastOfHisKind last of his kind]]. [[IntellectualAnimal Sort of a wolf-like creature]].
* Cait Sith: [[AlienScrappy Cute mascot character]]. [[CatsAreMean A Scottish cat]]. [[spoiler: Actually a robot made by Shinra Corp's Head of Urban Development Reeve Tuesti to infiltrate AVALANCHE. [[BecomingTheMask Switched]] [[HeelFaceTurn sides]].]]
* Cid Highwind: A pilot. [[ClusterFBomb Constantly swears]]. [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Rather gruff]]. [[BladeOnAStick Uses a lance]].
* [[OptionalPartyMember Yuffie Kisaragi]]: [[GenkiGirl Overly cheerful female sidekick]]. [[SheIsAllGrownUp Gets prettier]]. [[WutaiTheft Steals things]].
* [[OptionalPartyMember Vincent Valentine]]: Creepy [[TheGunslinger gunslinger]]. [[InvoluntaryShapeshifting Had a bad run-in with Hojo before the game started.]]

As for the villains there's [[MadScientist Dr Hojo]], [[BigBad Sephiroth]], [[EldritchAbomination Jenova]], [[QuirkyMinibossSquad the Turks]] and [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Rufus Shinra]].

Few people completely grasp the plot at the first playthrough - even for a RPG, this game can get extremely complicated. Also, this game is probably the world's biggest victim of HypeAversion.

Squaresoft (now Square Enix) published Final Fantasy VII on Sony's PlayStation console after a falling-out with Nintendo over the latter's extreme censorship policies, as well as a reported refusal to move away from the industry-standard ROM cartridge, which severely limited the scope of a game. Sony was more than willing to permit more 'mature' content on its systems -- that, coupled with the impressive storage capacity of the CD-ROM format, proved to be much more accommodating to Square's design philosophy.

Squaresoft had already attempted to release a game on CD -- ''Secret of Mana'' was slated for release on a Nintendo-proprietary but Sony-created CD-ROM peripheral for the Super Nintendo console. Negotiations between the three companies soured, however; while ''Secret of Mana'' was eventually released on a cartridge in a stripped-down form, the anticipated CD device died in DevelopmentHell, and was eventually released by Sony as a stand-alone product called the "PlayStation". Squaresoft would only release a few more titles under the Nintendo brand before following that CD device to Sony.

It proved successful enough to spawn a fair amount of merchandise, including including novellas told from various characters' perspectives, and a raft of {{Spin Off}}s collectively known as the "''Compilation of Final Fantasy VII''". These included:
* ''Final Fantasy VII: AdventChildren'', a full-length CG animated [[TheMovie movie]] sequel;
* ''Last Order: Final Fantasy VII'', an {{OAV}} version of two flashbacks from the game;
* ''DirgeOfCerberus: Final Fantasy VII'', a FirstPersonShooter sequel for [=PS2=] set after ''Advent Children'';
* ''CrisisCore: Final Fantasy VII'', a PSP [[POVSequel POV Prequel]] focusing on PosthumousCharacter Zack Fair;
* and, ''BeforeCrisis: Final Fantasy VII'' on cell-phones.
Oh, and this is the game that can be blamed for forever [[BrokenBase shattering]] the ''Final Fantasy'' fanbase. Because [[ItsPopularNowItSucks this is the one that got popular.]]

The FinalFantasyVII characters got their first cameo shots in the oft-forgotten FightingGame ''{{Ehrgeiz}}''.
----
!!This game is the TropeNamer for:
*GoldenSaucer
*TheLifestream
*LimitBreak
*OneWingedAngel
*SidetrackedByTheGoldSaucer
*{{Wutai}}
*WutaiTheft

!!This game contains examples of:
* AbusiveParents - Hojo and Lucrecia do genetic experiments on their son while he's ''still in the womb''.
* TheAce - Zack
* AGodAmI - Sephiroth's motive: To wound the Planet itself, and absorb the Lifestream energy that the Planet uses to heal.
** ''Advent Children'' expands on his motives: he wasn't just going to blow up the world and call it good, but then use the Lifestream's power to travel to another world and fuck ''it'' up. Just like Momma Jenova had done in the past.
* AlasPoorVillain - Kadaj
* AlienScrappy - Cait Sith
* AllThereInTheManual: The Sapphire [=WEAPON=]'s name was revealed nearly a decade after the fact when Square began selling figurines of it.
* AlwaysNight - Midgar seems to be like this, but it's only because of smog and fallout from the Mako reactors.
* AnticlimaxBoss - ''Final'' final duel with Sephiroth, which is basically an interactive cutscene.
* ApatheticCitizens - To the point where one NPC muses that [[spoiler: the destruction of an entire sector of Midgar]] is annoying because the kickup of dust ''ruined the soup'' he was cooking outside. Note that said citizen is not one of the rich people living on the upper plates, but one of the destitute people living in the slums. Meaning ''he has no reason to complain, so shut up!''
* ArmCannon - Barret
* ArtificialLimbs - Barret
* TheAtoner - [[spoiler:Rufus and the Turks, following the end of the game.]]
** Vincent Valentine sees himself as this when you first meet him. [[IGotBetter He gets better.]]
* AxCrazy - Barret's old buddy Dyne, who racks up quite the body count before you battle him.
* BadassLongcoat - Vincent and Sephiroth, although the latter is a villain.
* BareYourMidriff - Tifa and Yuffie.
* BeyondTheImpossible - AdventChildren breaks the laws of physics so many times and in such spectacular fashions each time it probably managed to punch out reality.
** The creators admitted they realized this and pointed out they were not trying to obey the laws of physics. They were just trying to [[RuleOfCool make it look]] ''[[RuleOfCool awesome]]''. The alternative, replicating the turn-based combat, would've looked silly.
* {{BFS}} - Cloud and Sephiroth each have one.
** And Sephiroth's is a [[KatanasAreJustBetter no-dachi]]. It's not just any no-dachi, it is ''six feet long'' in the game. In other words, almost longer than he is ''tall'' (his canonical height is 6'1"). In Crisis Core and Advent Children, the no-dachi gets a ''downgrade'' to a much more manageable four feet long (as if that makes it better).
** Does [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzGXnJhq4fM THIS]] look anything CLOSE to 4 feet long? Even in Dissidia Final Fantasy it was confirmed that his sword is easily longer than he is tall (a good 2 meters in length) and that is not counting the handle.
*** The swords seem to change size from incarnation to incarnation, and even within incarnations. In the original, the sword's total length is 7+ feet. In AC it seems to average at 8 feet (though the shot of Sephiroth impaling Cloud in the above video makes the sword at least 9 feet). In KingdomHearts its at least 10 feet in KH1 and 12 feet in KH2. CrisisCore has it around 7 to 8 feet in rendered cutscenes and around 5 to 6 feet within the game itself. Dissidia had about 9 feet in renders and the in-game model is anywhere from 10 to 13 feet depending on the shot or maybe it grows during attacks... who knows. It looks at least twice his height in overall length when viewing his character model in Dissidia's museum.
* BifurcatedWeapon - Cloud's new [[BigFancySword BFS]] in Advent Children.
* BigBrotherMentor - Angeal to Zack and Zack to Cloud.
* BladeLock - Happens several times towards the end of Advent Children.
* BladeOnAStick - Cid
* BlindIdiotTranslation - "This guy are sick" and "To the settling of everything," among other mistakes.
** The game says otherwise, but ''do not'' "attack while the tail is up" in the first boss battle.
*** Or, seeing as it was directed to barret, it brings to mind an [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation]], Cloud's a racist.
** To be fair, the translation isn't as awful as many of Square's previous efforts. However, it could have easily been averted, if not for Sakaguchi's stubborn refusal to let Ted Woolsey anywhere near the game and insistence that the Japanese development team also do the translation (despite the previous time this was attempted directly giving birth to a certain [[SpoonyBard Spoony Trope]]). Thankfully though, Square's localisations would be much improved starting with FinalFantasyVIII.
* BoisterousBruiser - Barret ''and'' Cid embody the trope.
* BonusBoss - The [=WEAPONs=].
* BosomBuddies - The infamous crossdressing scene in Wall Market.
* BoobsOfSteel - Tifa. Much like Sephiroth's katana, Tifa's massive, er, assets are considerably toned down in the Compilation, though still quite ample.
* BrokenAesop - After spending an entire game ranting about how environmentally destructive Mako extraction is, Barret goes off to look for an alternative, less harmful energy source: [[WallBanger oil]]. Only in a fantasy world would that be the preferable alternative.
* BrokenBase - Whether or not the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII should have been made and which, if any, portions of it are worthwhile.
* ButThouMust - halfway through the game, you get a MacGuffin and are told to give it to someone else for safekeeping. Everyone but Barret or Nanaki declines to accept it.
* CantDropTheHero: Cloud, unless it's Tifa or Cid (which it only is for about two hours). Even with LeakedExperience, other party members often CantCatchUp to him.
* CashCowFranchise: ''Compilation'', anyone?
* ChainsawGood: Vincent's Level 3 limit break Hellmasker.
* ChekhovsGunman - One of the [[{{Mook}} Shinra grunts]] in Cloud's flashbacks.
* TheChessmaster - Rufus Shinra manages to pull the wool over Kadaj's eyes for the entire movie.
** Given his MagnificentBastard status in the game, it really shouldn't come as any surprise...
* ChivalrousPervert - Zack. [[IGotBetter He gets better.]]
* ClusterFBomb - Barret and Cid have a tendency to launch into these. The harsher curse words are censored, since this game has a "T" rating. Interestingly enough, the PC version was censored more than the PS1 version, with hell and damn censored too. Bill Gates must have been sensitive that day.
* {{Combos}} - Various characters' limits breaks: Cloud's Omnislash, Tifa's entire string, Yuffie's Bloodfest and Doom of the Living, and Cid's Big Brawl.
* CompleteMonster - This title belongs to not Shinra, not even [[BigBad Sephiroth]], but to sociopathic MadScientist Hojo, whose experimental atrocities arguably led to the main conflict.
** And the conflict before. And the conflict ''after''. And the conflict after ''that''. Let's face it, Hojo could almost be the poster child for Complete Monster-ism.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive - The entire senior management of the Shinra company... Cranked {{Up To Eleven}}.
** Subverted with [[spoiler: Reeve, who controls Cait Sith for the benefit of the team later in the game.]]
* CosmicKeystone - The Lifestream
* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: [[ShutUpHannibal "Shut up."]]
**Also, when Cloud [[spoiler: first stabs Sephiroth, then gets stabbed by Sephiroth, then, using the fact that Sephiroth still has his sword ''in'' Cloud, turns him around, and ''hurls him off the catwalk to his doom''!!!]] The fact that that moment can also be described in [[CrowningMusicOfAwesome Crowning Music]], below, makes it all the better.
** Motorcycle FTW.
** The end, where [[spoiler: Cloud dives into the Lifestream to handle Sephiroth once and for all, and does so by unleashing an almighty Omnislash on the villain. To this troper, bringing Sephiroth back in ''Advent Children'' was a mistake, as such an amazing win/death can never be topped. If anything, it even takes away the power of this scene, as Cloud's attempt to finish Sephiroth once and for all [[ShootTheShaggyDog doesn't matter.]]]]
* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: right before Sephiroth's FaceHeelTurn, the music consists solely of a gong ringing out in regular time. Then he snaps--"Out of my way. I'm going to see my mother."--and suddenly the song is [[OhCrap the background of his character theme]].
** Similarly, in a late-game flashback, [[spoiler: we see how Cloud took out Sephiroth at Nibelhelm. The music is the standard World Map theme, but only looping the mellow part. It keeps going over this part, nothing too dramatic. Until, Cloud not only takes Sephiroth's stab, but turns it against him, at which point the music undergoes a huge swell into the fanfare part of the song. Words can't even describe how well it works.]]
* CryCute - Kadaj
* CPRCleanPrettyReliable
* CyberpunkWithAChanceOfRain - Midgar always has dark skies, even above the plate.
* DarkAndTroubledPast - Lots of people in this game. Sephiroth would qualify, but Aerith takes the prize for a traumatic upbringing. Her father is killed by Shinra while she's a newborn, she grows up in the prisons of Shinra headquarters for seven years with Tseng as the only person who shows her sympathy. Her mother makes a HeroicSacrifice to give her freedom, though even after THAT she is still constantly under watch by the Turks. One can only wonder why she'd warm up to a guy from SOLDIER after all of that.
* DefeatMeansFriendship - Beating up that Mysterious Ninja allows you to recruit her into your party.
** But only if you give the right (apathetic) [[GuideDangIt answers to her questions]]. Failure just means she steals cash from you, but it's a lot of cash!
*** She also [[TricksterArchetype tricks you]] with a fake save point and takes you money if you check it out.
* DerelictGraveyard - Of ''trains''.
* DieForOurShip - Loads of it - some people even took the game's most infamous scene as a literal example of this trope.
* DiscOneFinalDungeon ([[spoiler:Northern Continent]])
** Even earlier then that, the assault on Shinra HQ.
* DoesntLikeGuns - Sephiroth
* DoomedHometown - Nibelheim for Cloud and Tifa, Midgar's sector 7 slums and Corel for Barret)
* DracoInLeatherPants - Sephiroth appears to have surpassed many of the other characters in popularity across the Final Fantasy fandom because he's so damn [[WhiteHairedPrettyBoy "bish".]] Never mind that he, you know, ''almost [[EarthShatteringKaboom destroyed an entire planet]]'' and has numerous innocent deaths and pointless bloody rampages in his past.
** In CrisisCore, he is presented as far more likable and understandable, though that was a prequel set ''before'' Sephiroth snapped in Nibelheim and became a homicidal maniac. This makes sense, as there had to be ''some'' reason that Cloud and Zack idolized Sephiroth before he went psycho. ''Advent Children,'' made by the same creative staff as ''Crisis Core'', still portrayed him as an unrepentant psychopath manipulating clones and spreading terminal disease from beyond the grave.
**Note that a lot of his fangirls actually see him in more of a [[WoobieDestroyerofWorlds Woobie Destroyer of Worlds]] way due to his [[FreudianExcuse Freudian Excuse]] and obvious mental illness. This doesn't stop him from being [[DracoInLeatherPants a Draco]], though.
* DressedToKill - The Turks, with the exception of Reno. While the rest of the Turks wear their blue suits clean, pressed, and neat, Reno wears his like he just woke up from a drunken one-night-stand.
* DressingAsTheEnemy - The Junon infiltration sequence.
* DrunkOnTheDarkSide: - Sephiroth, Hojo
* DudeLooksLikeALady - Lampshaded early in the game when Cloud has to [[spoiler: ''crossdress'' to get into Don Corneo's mansion.]] Depending on how much the player worked, it's even possible for [[spoiler: ''him to picked over Aerith and Tifa as Corneo's future bride.'']] FoeYay and {{Squick}} don't even begin to describe it.
* DuelBoss - Barret and Dyne, Yuffie and the Pagoda, and of course, Cloud and Sephiroth.
* EnsembleDarkhorse: - Vincent. So much that he even got his own spinoff game.
** Rufus Shinra as well. There's a reason [[HeGotBetter he came back]] for Advent Children.
* ExcuseMeComingThrough: In the AdventChildren movie this trope occurs during the chase through the streets of Midgar.
* EvilerThanThou - Sephiroth and Shinra
* FailPolish - Reno was ''not'' originally designed as the prettyboy he is in FFAC and later installations.
* FakeMemories - Hey, remember the Nibelheim flashback sequence you poured about 2 hours into? Yeah, [[spoiler:[[MindScrew it didn't actually happen that way, and Tifa's got some 'splaining to do]]]].
* FantasticAesop - If we ever find a way to tap into the energy of the Earth, we'll heed the lessons of this game and not suck it out. We'll [[BrokenAesop stick to coal instead]].
* FateWorseThanDeath [[spoiler: Instead of being left for dead after Sephiroth completely devastated them, Zack and Cloud are experimented on for four years by Hojo before Zack manages to break them out. Cloud is left a vegetable from being used as a test subject, and while he got better, his already weak mental state was completely shattered and he had self-induced Amnesia to cope with the events.]]
** Meanwhile, [[spoiler:Sephiroth spent five years frozen in mako, conscious but unable to move.]]
** Also, the Compilation reveals, [[spoiler:Jenova cells left Lucrecia unable to die. She went and froze herself in crystal instead, but may still be conscious.]]
* FetishFuel - Men in leather. Men in suits. Men in uniforms. Men who shapeshift. A very "talented" heroine. Materia that [[IfYouKnowWhatIMean ought to be used for the other use.]]
* FinalExamBoss - [[spoiler:During the final battle with Sephiroth you can switch your party members.]]
* {{Flanderization}} - While many people seem to forget that Cloud spent most of ''FinalFantasyVII'' one step away from a complete mental breakdown anyway (and spent a large section of the game in a coma from mental stress), he still has a habit of becoming more and more mopey with each successive spin-off.
* FriendshipMoment - The flashback in disc 3
* FoeYay - Infamously Cloud and Sephiroth
* {{Foil}} - More in the Compilation than the original game, itself. In ''Crisis Core'', Genesis is cultured and well-versed in literature, and Zack makes it clear that he doesn't have the patience to try to understand him. In ''Dirge of Cerberus'', all of the Tsviets have something in common with Vincent, but the most notable is Azul, with his giant cannon (contrasting Vincent's typical choice of a handgun) and ability to transform into an enormous monster.
* FridgeBrilliance - ''Advent Children'''s Bahamut [=SIN=] battle is gratuitously stylish and action-packed, mainly due to the ridiculous lengths the party has to go to to land basic hits. Then you realize that, looking at the series's gigantic and dangerous boss monsters, ''most boss battles must actually be like this.''
* GaidenGame - ''Dirge of Cerberus'', ''Crisis Core'', and ''Before Crisis''.
* GainaxEnding - Up until the ''Compilation of Final Fantasy VII'' came out and clarified it, this game had an extremely confusing ending sequence that left many people wondering [[spoiler: whether the world was destroyed at the end of the game or not.]] The length of time between the Compilation and the original game's release led to many decrying Square for "retconning" this.
* {{Gainaxing}} - Tifa, in cutscenes.
* GameBreaker: Too many to name. Among other things, with the right Materia combination, it was possible to throw yourself into a loop of [[LastDiscMagic Knights of the Round]] until whatever you were facing was dead. This includes ''the final boss''. And the [[BonusBoss Bonus Bosses]]. And [[MemeticBadass Batman]].
** Also, it is worth noting that it is possible for Cloud to mime his own Omnislash, thus another loop of death for whatever you were facing.
* GameplayAndStorySegregation - Aerith's death is the most prominent, though hardly the first like this in the series.
** There's also Red XIII's father, Seto, who was petrified. And for some reason, [[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=176 no one thought to use a Soft on him...]]
* GatelessGhetto - Midgar. Despite being a massive city with a large amount of buildings, you only explore Slum Sectors Four, Five, Six, and Seven, a few alleyways on the upper city, the Sector One and Five Reactors, and the Shinra Tower.
* GreenRocks - Materia; most of it is actually [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin green]].
* GoldfishPoopGang - The Turks. They oppose Cloud [[PunchClockVillain if ordered to]], but under other circumstances are perfectly willing to live and let live. By ''Advent Children'' they're basically allies, and they get their own game in ''Before Crisis''. And they have an awesome theme tune.
* GuestStarPartyMember - Sephiroth, during the "Young Cloud" flashback sequence. [[strike: Practically]] invincible, and can chop anything in two with his {{BFS}}.
* TheGwenStacy - If it weren't for Gwen Stacy coming 32 years before, Aerith would probably have named this trope.
* HeroesPreferSwords - Cloud and Zack.
* HeroicBSOD - Cloud has ''issues''.
* HeroicSacrifice - Horrifically subverted by Aerith's death, but played straight by [[spoiler: Cait Sith, who sacrifices himself to let the heroes escape the Temple of the Ancients - [[DisneyDeath But because he's a remotely controlled robot, he comes right back not ten minutes later.]]]]
** Perhaps the biggest twist of the knife is that [[spoiler: Cait Sith's]] sacrifice comes right before Aerith's death. Since [[spoiler: Cait Sith's]] is treated as no big deal, the ''real'' death of Aerith is that much more shocking.
** [[spoiler: Zack Fair]] also gets one at the end of ''Crisis Core'' (YouShouldKnowThisAlready), but his is supremely more awesome than any other, since he gets to massacre an entire ''army'' on his own before finally being killed (and he knew it would happen, so...).
* HighlyVisibleNinja - Yuffie.
* HollywoodNerd - Every female scientist in the franchise.
* IJustWantToBeBadass - Cloud Strife is a {{deconstruction}} of this.
* IKnewIt: The unnamed aquatic [=WEAPON=] that attacks Junon at the start of Disc 2 was dubbed the Sapphire [=WEAPON=] by fans and was later confirmed to be true by WordOfGod.
* ImprobableWeaponUser - Cait Sith's megaphones and Red XIII's headpieces. They somehow boost attack, though they aren't used directly.
* InevitableTournament
* InfinityPlusOneSword - Every character save Aerith has an ultimate weapon that has eight linked Materia slots and provides additional combat benefits. For instance, Cloud's Ultima Weapon and Cait Sith's HP Shout gain strength when their HP is high.
** Aerith gets hers much earlier ([[PlotlineDeath for obvious reasons]]), but it has only seven linked Materia Slots.
** The downside is that these weapons have zero materia growth, but by the time you get most of them, your Materia won't have much growing left to do anyway.
*** In addition to the obvious power of the various [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity Plus One Swords]], they all have some trick to maxing out damage. Cloud's Ultima Weapon does more damage if his HP is high. Barret's Missing Score does more damage based on how much mastered materia he has equipped on it. Tifa's Premium Heart does more damage if [[LimitBreak limit gauge]] is high. And so on.
* IntellectualAnimal - Red XIII
* InterfaceSpoiler - The stores sell weapons for party members you haven't discovered yet, or [[OptionalPartyMember may never get at all.]]
* ItGotWorse - part of the GainaxEnding. [[ColonyDrop Meteor]] is here, but "Holy," the spell Aerith conjured to protect the Planet, has also arrived to counter it. However, [[ChekhovsGun Bugenhagen told us]] (30-40 hours ago) that Holy protects the Planet from anything threatening it—and [[HumansAreBastards we mean "anything"]]. Which is why Holy ''allies with Meteor'' and starts tearing up. (Fortunately, Aerith has a BigDamnHeroes moment already planned.)
* ItWasHisSled - [[MemeticMutation Aerith dies.]]
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy - Vincent, almost word for word
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold - Cid. Now sit down and drink your goddamn TEA.
** Also, Yuffie post WutaiTheft.
*** Barret also counts.
* KarmaHoudini - Rufus
** Debatable, considering he [[spoiler:nearly gets killed by the one WEAPON, then gets Geostigma, and spends the rest of the Compilation as TheAtoner.]]
** Palmer also survives the game, but because he's so inconsequential he never appears again in either the sequels ''or'' prequels.
* KillSat - Barret's "Satellite Beam" Level 3 LimitBreak
* KillTheCutie - Do we need to say it again? [[hottip:*: Aerith dies.]]
* KleptomaniacHeroFoundUnderwear - During the Nibelheim flashback, it's possible for Cloud to sneak into Tifa's house and rifle through her drawers and find "orthopaedic underwear." This sequence is happening under the framing device that Cloud is actually narrating everything he does in the flashback to his companions, and Tifa buts in at this point and yells at him for revealing this. Then again, [[spoiler:[[MindScrew this never actually happened, so Tifa is knowingly getting upset over a completely false memory]]]].
* LastOfHisKind - Aerith is last of the Ancients.
* LensFlare - Advent Children. And how.
* LetThemDieHappy - [[spoiler:Kadaj's death]]
* LimitBreak - The originals!
** Not quite -- FinalFantasyVI had one per character, since they randomly replaced an attack roughly 1 out of 20 attacks, and only when your character was in critical HP. They weren't actually ''called'' {{Limit Break}}s; in fact, they were never referred to in the manual at all, and were only given a passing mention in the game itself.
* LittlestCancerPatient - And How! The Hundreds, possibly thousands of children battling Geostigma around the world in Advent Children.
* MacGuffinDeliveryService - Cloud, under Sephiroth's control, does this multiple times during the plot.
* MadScientist - Hojo, oh god Hojo.
* {{Magitek}} - Mako power
* MamaBear - Tifa in Advent Children Complete.
* MatchmakerCrush - Though competing for Aerith's affection for Cloud, Tifa likes Cloud more when he shows concern for Aerith. Go figure.
* MeaningfulName - Cloud ''Strife'', Tifa ''Lockheart'', and Cid ''Highwind''. Then there's the painfully obvious theme naming (Sephiroth, Jenova = Sephirot, Jehovah).
* MegaCorp - Shinra Inc.
* MemeticMutation - "Advent Children is the [[CutscenePowerToTheMax BEST CUTSCENE EVER]]!!"
* MindScrew - thanks in part to the BlindIdiotTranslation.
* MoodWhiplash - A non-plot related example, also due to translation issues: [[spoiler:"Beacause you're a puppet."]]
** There's a little bit of this considering the next thing you do after Aerith/[[SpellMyNameWithAnS s]] dies is go snowboarding.
* MoreDakka - Barret's "Ungarmax" Level 3 LimitBreak. Also what Shinra does to the Mako Cannon near the end of Disc 2.
* {{Mordor}} - Midgar. A large expance of polluted wasteland surrounds the city, and the closer you get to the city limits, the greyer and gloomier the sky and colors become. Inside the city, the sky is often incredibly dark and depressing, and this can all be connected to the Mako Reacors and the fallout and pollution they generate.
* MostWonderfulSound - Ultima spell.
** The LimitBreak sound
* MusclesAreMeaningless - This troper has a wonderfully vivid memory of Tifa suplexing the Diamond [=WEAPON=] (among other things).
* MyNameIsNotDurwood - For some reason, the rest of the party keeps calling Red XIII by that name even after they learn his real name is Nanaki. This troper always made it a point to rename him "Nanaki" at the naming screen when he first joins.
** This troper named everyone "Sephiroth" during one play through and that got ''really'' confusing after a while.
* MysteriousWaif - Aerith
* {{Nakama}} - [[spoiler: Cloud originally viewed Zack as his closest friend, but that grows to encompass all of AVALANCHE as he begins to open himself up.]]
** The Turks view each other as comrades, especially {{Heterosexual Life Partners}} Reno and Rude.
* MythologyGag: Like all the other FinalFantasy games, there are several. Among others, Cid isn't the first [[FinalFantasyIV dragoon named "Highwind"]].
** [[FinalFantasyII By a long shot]].
* NightmareFuel - The various encounters with [[CosmicHorror Jenova]], any scenes that include the songs "Trail of Blood" and "Those Chosen by the Planet", Yin-Yang, Who Am I, ect.
** Geostigma is nasty enough in the original release of ''AdventChildren''; ''AdventChildren Complete'', and the "On The Way To A Smile" OAV, make its terminal stage (and corpses affected with it) absolutely terrifying.
** Plus the fact that Materia is essentially the souls of everything you've killed over the course of the game.
* NoBiochemicalBarriers - Jenova, an alien lifeform from who-knows-where, can infect humanoids without a problem. Hojo also seems to think that he can [[HotSkittyOnWailordAction breed Aerith and Red XIII,]] though his concept of "breeding" seems to be "let the big hairy monster claw her to death" if the scene in the game is any indication.
** On the other hand, this can move into NightmareFuel very fast depending on if you've run across animal/human relation sites on the internet. Would you like some brain bleach to go with that {{Squick}}?
* NoExportForYou - Before Crisis, particularly annoying because it's almost universally agreed by reviewers to be the highest quality cell phone game of all time.
** Then again, its plotline is ''really'' boring...
* TheObiWrong: Though Barret is the leader of AVALANCHE and is giving Cloud orders, circumstances force him under Cloud's leadership instead.
* OlderThanTheyLook: Vincent and Lucrecia are around sixty, but thanks to BodyHorror experiments and hibernation, they look as though they're still late-twenties, with Lucrecia looking about the same age as her own son. Shelke is the same age as Yuffie, but her body is locked at nine years old after her SuperSoldier treatment.
* OminousLatinChanting "Estuans interius, ira vehementi, ''Sephiroth''! Noli manere, manere in memoria, nole manere, manere in memoria, ''Sephiroth''!"
* OmnicidalManiac - Sephiroth's plan involves leveling the planet with a [[ColonyDrop massive meteorite]].
* OneNationUnderCopyright - Shinra
* OptionalPartyMember - Yuffie, Vincent
* OurGiantsAreBigger - The [=WEAPONS=]. The Ultima [=WEAPON=] alone is shown to be at least three times the size of the ''Highwind''.
* [[OutrunTheFireball Outswing The Fireball]] - during the escape from Sector 7.
* OverlyLongFightingAnimation - All of the summons. OneWingedAngel!Sephiroth's ultimate attack, "Supernova", takes this beyond ridiculous levels.
* PartyInMyPocket: Lampshaded when Cloud tries to stop Cait Sith from joining the party.
* PietaPlagiarism
* PlayerPunch: Walk with the Planet, Aerith.
* PlotlineDeath: Say it with us: Aerith.
* PointlessDoomsdayDevice - Seriously, why would the Cetra, [[FriendToAllLivingThings friends to all living things]], create a materia designed to destroy the world that that birthed them?
** There ''is'' naturally occurring Materia, to be fair, but it's never said whether the Black Materia came about this way, or much at all about its creation, come to that.
** The Black Materia may have been created as a last resort for the King of vermin, like Jenova.
* PowersAsPrograms - Materia.
* PowerPerversionPotential - Materia like Transform, Manipulate, and Time. Not to mention Sephiroth and Vincent's shapeshifting abilities.
* PowZapWhamCam - Used in Junon and Shin-Ra Mansion.
* PrecisionGuidedBoomerang - Yuffie's entire contribution to Advent Children is having a flashy shuriken to throw around.
** In one of Advent Children Complete's [[RetCon altered scenes]] Cloud throws two of his swords as boomerangs. One comes back quite soon. The other one he catches about 10 seconds later, still in mid-flight, using the sword he was already holding. The laws of physics wept, before getting [[BeyondTheImpossible kicked to the curb]].
* PsychopathicManchild - Kadaj, though he is rather young. And Loz, who fits the description a little better.
* RedemptionInTheRain - Kadaj gets this. Loz and Yazoo just get blown up in the rain.
* RelationshipValues - Though most people either end up with Tifa or Aerith, it's possible to get either Barret or Yuffie to accompany Cloud on the Gold Saucer date.
* RolePlayingGame
* RuleOfCool - ''Advent Children''. Every. Single. Fight scene. The production team even admitted that this was the only rule they followed in making the movie.
* SaveScumming - Chocobo breeding. Even if you've [[GuideDangIt got all the qualities and colors set up right]], there's still random chance in getting any of them to have the right gender.
* ScaryBlackMan - Barret.
* SceneryGorn - Welcome to Midgar. It sucks and we're going to spend a lot of time showing you.
* TheScrappy - Cait Sith and Yuffie.
* ScriptedBattle - The final battle.
* SequentialBoss - Sephiroth and Hojo.
* {{Sequelitis}} - A common complaint regarding the ''Compilation'' titles, particularly ''DirgeOfCerberus''.
* ShipTease - Although, at least in recent years, the game itself certainly complicates matters, not least by including possible date sequences with Aerith, Tifa, Yuffie... and Barret.
* ShipToShipCombat - [[FanDumb The game came out in 1997. Twelve years later, there are still websites, forums, and furious debates dedicated to whether Cloud should be with Tifa or Aerith]].
* ShoutOut - [[StarWars Biggs and Wedge]].
** Also, [[{{Akira}} the motorcycle sequence]].
** Also, [[NeonGenesisEvangelion the Type-D magma-diver equipment]] in the Gold Saucer trophy room.
**Shin-Ra Mansion, Vincent, and Lucretia. Someone at Squeenix obviously has a fondness for EdgarAllanPoe. There's a monster with a giant bladed pendulum for a lower body that swings from a chain in the mansion. Both Vincent and Lucretia are essentially BuriedAlive and have a bad case of LoveHurts, tropes that Poe was fond of. Vincent was named after Vincent Price, who was in just about every movie ever based on one of Edgar Allen Poe's works.
** The [[MyBloodyValentine Loveless]] posters in the opening movie.
** Sephiroth’s OutOfTheInferno scene may well be a tribute to a certain scene from ''TheUsualSuspects''. [[spoiler: There are certain similarities to both Keyser Söze and Sephiroth in these scenes, since they both end up being really evil afterwards.]]
** Vincent's Hellmasker transformation wears a [[FridayThe13th hockey mask]] and wields a [[TexasChainsawMassacre chainsaw]]. Coincidence?
* SingleStrokeBattle - Odin.
* SlapOnTheWristNuke - Many a summon, and Sephiroth's solar system shattering attack.
* SoapOperaDisease[=/=]IncurableCoughOfDeath Geostigma. A Genetic disease [[spoiler: born of Sephiroth's hatred after dissolving into the lifestream but not dissipating.]] In Advent Children Complete, Vincent basically describes it as Magical AIDS.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS - You could probably [[InternetBackdraft power several continents]] with the sheer energy spent on debating whether to use "Aerith" or "Aeris". As of recent releases (such as ''CrisisCore'' and ''KingdomHearts''), "Aerith" has become the canon spelling.
* SphereOfPower - In this case, Materia.
* SpiritAdvisor - Aerith in Advent Children and Zack as well in Advent Children Complete.
* SpritePolygonMix - Square's first foray into this style of gaming.
* {{Squick}} - Hojo trying to [[InterspeciesRomance breed Aerith and Red XIII]].
* StaffChick - Aerith
* StarfishCharacter - Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo each represent different aspects of Sephiroth. Don't ask how Kadaj ''alone'' managed to turn back into Sephiroth...
** All three of them were originally going to turn back into Sephiroth but the producers decided it would look too [[{{Narm}} Narmy.]]
* SticksToTheBack - Cloud's {{BFS}}.
** Almost certainly due to graphical limitations at the time; Advent Children shows quite clearly that he uses a sheath/holster.
*** Working from Crisis Core, SOLDIER troops are fitted with Magnetic holsters for their swords. you can see the magnet plate on the back.
* StormingTheCastle
* SwissArmyAppendage - Barret.
* SwissArmyWeapon - Barret and Yuffie, during a couple of their Limit Breaks with certain weapons...
* TearJerker - You know the scene.
* TechPoints - Materia have a separate EXP scale to the characters. To complicate things, some equipment offers double or even triple Materia growth.
* ThatOneLevel - Climbing the Gaea Cliffs to reach the Northern Crater.
* ThatOneSidequest - Most people will be sent into shiverfits just by ''mentioning'' the [[BonusBoss Emerald]] [[HarderThenHard Weapon]].
** ''Chocobo Ranching.''
** What, no one's tried [[NintendoHard Ruby Weapon]]?
* ThereAreNoTherapists - Emotionally disturbed mercenary? Petty thief? Serial bomber? BodyHorror victim? Multiple victims of kidnapping and ParentalAbandonment? Nope, no problems here!
* ThirtySecondBlackout - Firing the Sister Ray.
* TogetherInDeath - Aerith and Zack.
* ThoseTwoGuys - [[StarWars Biggs and Wedge]] of AVALANCHE. Throw Jessie in, and they become ThoseTwoGuys [[TwoGuysAndAGirl And A Girl]]. Later Rude, Reno, and Elena fill that role. Reno and Rude by them selves are a good example in TheMovie.
* TransformationTrauma - Vincent.
* TraumaCongaLine - Holy crap, ''Denzel''. The "On The Way To A Smile" novella and OAV spares him no suffering.
* {{Tykebomb}} - Sephiroth and Kadaj.
* UnexpectedGenreChange - The bike, snowboarding and submarine battle sequences. These are eventually unlocked as minigames in the GoldSaucer.) Also [[TowerDefense Fort Condor]].
* UnusableEnemyEquipment - Sephiroth's sword Masamune is explicitly stated to be a weapon only he can use. At one point, the team sees the sword [[spoiler: sticking out of the corpse of President Shinra]], but they don't take it, presumably for this reason. In the ''Last Order'' anime's recreation of the Nibelheim scene, Tifa attempts to use this weapon to slash Sephiroth and fails for this reason, though this was not present in ''CrisisCore'''s version of the same scene.
** To be more accurate, we don't see the scene in Crisis Core. Whether this is due to Retcon (putting it after Zack gets his ass kicked but before Cloud shows up), or just because the developers weren't paying attention is up for debate.
* UncleTomfoolery: Why no Squaresoft, not all black people are like Mr. T [[strike:sadly]].
* UrbanLegendOfZelda - An ever-rumored quest to bring back Aerith. Discussed in more detail on the HeroicSacrifice entry.
* VasquezAlwaysDies: Played straight or inverted, depending on your prespective
* ViceCity: Midgar. The Wall Market is a really sleazy red-lights district owned by a wealthy pervert, and muggers can be encountered in Sector 5. Other than that, crime isn't really encountered.
* VillainDecay - Rude and Reno, who were actually ''competent'' in FF7, are reduced to comic relief in FFAC now that they've had their HeelFaceTurn. Then again, they still put up a good fight against Loz and Yazoo.
** Isn't this more an example of GoodIsDumb ? Competent adversies, nearly usless allies
** To be fair, they're two ordinary guys fighting mako-supercharged god-clone beings. And they still don't do too bad.
* WelcomeBackTraitor - [[spoiler:Yuffie]], [[spoiler:Cait Sith]]. The latter is practically the poster child and could have been the TropeNamer were it not for all the ''other'' strange characteristics making it impossible to determine just which one we'd be talking about by name drop alone, despite the time span between betrayal and redemption being so short that it might be less "welcome back" and more "actually never even left."
* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic - Jehovah is the Hebrew God and Sephirot is the attributes God can manifest through. It is no coincidence the antagonists are Jenova and Sephiroth respectively.
** Cloud baptizing the children in ''Advent Children''.
* WhatTheHellHero - Cloud gets called out on his morally dubious actions more than once during the game.
** The first occurrence is even 30 minutes into the game.
** And later, Cait Sith calls out the rest of our heroes for their eco-terrorist bombings at the beginning of the game, which caused a couple hundred deaths according to him.
* WhiteHairedPrettyBoy - Lots of 'em.
* WrestlerInAllOfUs - Tifa's "Meteodrive" limit break. Rather than a martial arts attack like her other moves, it's a pro wrestling suplex. (Sheer drop brainbuster, to be precise)
* YouAreNumberSix - Red XIII
* YouBlockhead - [[spoiler:It turns out Cid's assistant isn't as responsible for his crushed dream as he thought.]]
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