Characters / Final Fantasy VII Remake – Antagonists and Bosses

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"Those Chosen by the Planet"

Sephiroth (Unmarked Spoilers)

Voiced By: Tyler Hoechlin (English), Toshiyuki Morikawa (Japanese)^{Foreign VAs} Bruno Choël (French), Florian Hoffmann (German)

Click ^here to see his appearance as a teenager.

"Those who look with clouded eyes see nothing but shadows."

A mysterious man who appears to have some connection to Cloud. He wields a nodachi called the Masamune and was formerly a SOLDIER First Class, considered a living legend even amongst its top members.

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• Abled in the Adaptation: In the original, for the entirety of the game except its very end, Sephiroth was Dead All Along, his lifeless body stuck in the Northern Crater, using Jenova fragments to act in his stead. Here, while he's seemingly still in that condition, his ability to manifest through the Sephiroth Clones has improved to the point where he can make them take on his appearance and at least a semblance of his abilities. In the climaxes of both Remake and Rebirth, he arranges conditions where he's fully able to fight on his own with seemingly no host at all.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: He cuts an entire bridge with one swipe of his sword, and can casually one-shot the Whispers — which are noted to be resilient to physical attacks.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Even with his original incarnation being the World's Strongest Man, in this game Sephiroth steps it up a notch. As explained under All Your Powers Combined, in this game Sephiroth has powers displayed from his appearances in spin-offs like Kingdom Hearts and Dissidia, and his Advent Children incarnation, including flight, telekinetically moving buildings, mastery of magic, and long, powerful sword combos. In Rebirth he takes it further by expanding his powerset even more; he can weaponize the Whispers, conjure an imitation of Bahamut Arisen, perform his trademark sword attacks using constructs of darkness instead of an actual blade, and can perform stronger variants of those same attacks as follow-ups. The Rebirth Ultimania exposits that the Sephiroth Reborn fighting Cloud, Zack, and the rest of the party at the same time are all him as his existence now transcends dimensions, allowing him to exist on different worlds with the same consciousness. Suffice to say, he's practically a Physical God already before he's begun to absorb the Lifestream.
  • In the original game when he was a Guest-Star Party Member during Cloud's flashback of Nibelheim, Sephiroth's primary power came from his high level, mastered Materia, and top-tier equipment. In the same sequence as Rebirth, the different style of gameplay makes the power disparity between him and Cloud much more apparent even without taking those factors into account; Sephiroth moves and attacks very quickly, deals heavy damage, fires blast of dark energy to attack from range, his unique mechanic lets him use different finishers depending on his combo, and his ATB abilities are also very strong. He easily outclasses Cloud and everyone else the player has taken control of before.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Remake takes place entirely in Midgar, and Sephiroth was only mentioned during that portion of the original game. Here he appears as early as Chapter 2 (even if he's just a hallucination that Cloud suffers from), but makes a full, proper appearance in the final two chapters and is even the final obstacle keeping the party from escaping Midgar, where in the original story he wasn't fought until the very end. Rebirth has him turn into his Sephiroth Reborn form for the final boss fight in that game, even through Bizarro Sephiroth (as its name was localized in the original game) is not fought until the very end of the original game as the penultimate final boss.
• Adaptational Intelligence: While Sephiroth in the original game was established to be The Ace once upon a time, this was before his Sanity Slippage turned into something just one step above a Generic Doomsday Villain. Remake makes him a far more active threat, and he is markedly better at playing mind games with Cloud and knows exactly which buttons to push — he sows paranoia about Jenova's shapeshifting mimicry, the inconsistencies in his memories, his lack of visible response to emotional events, and more, in the name of worsening Cloud's crisis of identity and drive a wedge between him and his allies. He also has a plan in place more complex and far-reaching than in the original game, intending to become a Multiversal Conqueror, and as part of this tricks Cloud and his allies into killing the Arbiters of Fate to damage the timeline and potentially avert his future defeat.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Despite his more pronounced affability to Cloud in this version, Sephiroth does something in the remake that he didn't originally: he personally murdered Cloud's mother and uses it to torment him, telling him about how she begged him to spare her son and how he killed her with his own blade. He even takes it a step further and recites her dying Last Words just to twist the knife more. In the original, she was another casualty of his burning of Nibelheim, and her death wasn't brought up again. He also mocks Cloud every time he fails to reinforce Cloud's frustration at the world over having no control over the direction of his own life to motivate Cloud into accomplishing his goals.
• Adaptation Name Change: The form he takes in the final boss fight of Rebirth is known as Sephiroth Reborn, it was known as Bizarro Sephiroth in the original game. ^note In Japan it's always been known as Rebirth Sephiroth, so this is actually a more accurate name than the original localization.
• Adaptational Personality Change: Played with. When he appears he tends to be focused on mocking and tormenting Cloud, which is accurate to his characterization in Advent Children (as well as spin-offs like Kingdom Hearts and Dissidia), but isn't much like his original Final Fantasy VII incarnation, where he was focused on other goals and didn't pay Cloud any notice unless he was in a position to be a complication in Sephiroth's plans. He still has shades of his original VII personality, but they're downplayed in favor of his rivalry with Cloud. Somewhat justified by the game being ambiguous on when Sephiroth is actually appearing to Cloud, and when Cloud's psychological problems are causing him to hallucinate Sephiroth; it could be that the times Sephiroth is more openly contemptuous of Cloud are when it's just in his head. Even more justified by the ending, where it is revealed that Sephiroth seems to have a very different plan from the original game, and Cloud is a part of them.
• Adaptational Wimp: Make no mistake, Sephiroth is still incredibly dangerous and powerful in this continuity, but he's not the borderline Physical God he was portrayed as in the original game, and he can find himself overwhelmed in a fight if taken by surprise or fighting multiple skilled opponents.
• Alien Blood: When Cloud cuts into his Reborn form, the wound is covered in black substance and Black Whispers escape from the wound. This seems to hint that his current state when seen in the Edge of Creation is in actuality an aggregate of Black Whispers formed into his shape rather than a normal body.
• All Your Powers Combined: Does this with himself in his final boss fight in Remake, which combines aspects of his abilities from throughout his history. His moveset includes tier 3 magic, inspired by when he was a temporary party member in VII; he has Shadowflare and Heartless Angel from his Safer Sephiroth transformation; he has Octaslash from Crisis Core; he can manifest his single black wing first seen in Advent Children; he has attacks from the Dissidia games, with Scintilla and Hell's Gate coming from the original PSP games while Telluric Fury, Aeolian Onslaught, and Zanshin come from Dissidia NT; and he has several new attacks associated with darkness and can summon a dark aura around himself similar to his Kingdom Hearts appearances. It really emphasizes how dangerous Sephiroth is in Remake that he can do pretty much everything players have ever seen from him before and more, and even that still isn't the full extent of his power.
• Ambiguously Bi: His interactions with Cloud are filled with homoerotic subtext, often creepy and played for horror. Some of his quotes include "I am your everything", "Don't deny me, embrace me", and "I will not end, nor will I have you end". He tends to get very close to Cloud and touch him a lot while delivering cryptic messages.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Cloud is tormented by flashbacks and visions of him throughout the game, but it's sometimes ambiguous when Sephiroth is actually appearing to him and when Cloud is just hallucinating. The game's Ultimania guide specifies that there are four forms of Sephiroth in the game; the one that appears to Cloud in visions, the one in Cloud's flashbacks, the one manifested through the black-cloaked men, and the one that is fought at the end of the game. The guide doesn't specify exactly what the nature of the fourth Sephiroth is and leaves his existence as a question mark.
  • In an instance only in the Japanese voice-over, when Sephiroth appears at the Edge of Creation, he uses the personal pronoun of ore 俺 as heard in Crisis Core, instead of the more formal watashi 私 he uses in all his other appearances after his turn to villainy. Given the past consistency in his pronouns this is certainly a deliberate creative choice and not just a writer's oversight, but it's unclear what it could mean. Cloud could possibly be talking to an entirely different Sephiroth, one from the Crisis Core era, or it could mean that Sephiroth in the present (or the future) has had a shift in his personality and motivations.
  • During a protorelic sidequest, Sephiroth briefly meets Gilgamesh and is taken aback by seeing him and senses that he is a lost soul. It is unsaid if he actually recognizes him and if he does what that means for what Sephiroth actually is at the moment.
• Anger Is Not Enough: A running theme with Sephiroth is that both against and for him, anger will not be enough.
  • Against him rage will only lead to your downfall and falling into his schemes. Cloud, Tifa, Rufus, Barret individually and the party as a whole only end up in worse positions and nearly die when they let their rage towards Sephiroth's ambitions lead them. It is only when they are able to let go of their pain and forge ahead new that they actually slow him down.
  • His own rage at the world that created him has only led him down a path of isolation, hated by all and missed by no one. Most crucially, his inability to stop Aerith from directly interfering with his plans is a direct byproduct of him unable to see her doing something that doesn't involve anger but love and sacrifice.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • The man who murdered Cloud's mother and razed his hometown to the ground becomes his most hated enemy, just like in the original continuity. Sephiroth, for his part, continues to torment Cloud out of grudge for killing him during his rampage in Nibelheim, making good use of emotional manipulations and gaslighting to sadistically taunt Cloud over his failures at every possible moment, hoping to break him eventually by filling his heart with hatred and corruption. However, it's also heavily implied that Sephiroth is trying to goad Cloud to join his side, and doesn't "hate" him so much as he sees Cloud as a valuable pawn and even potential ally.
  • As Rebirth establishes, he's this to Aerith as well. Specifically, "future" Aerith, whose memories and consciousness have jumped from reality to reality as she searches for a means to prevent Sephiroth from steering fate into a direction where he wins. She hops from world to world, evading him and seeking the possible branches that can stop him. It's implied that they've been at this cat and mouse game for a long time. Sephiroth detests Aerith for not just having the power and means to be a direct threat to his plans, but also for reminding him of how much he's fallen as a person after giving in to his hatred and obsession with Jenova. Aerith, for her part, pities Sephiroth more than anything and tries to get him to see the error of his ways, to no avail.
  • Subverted with Tifa. Like Cloud, she also came to hate Sephiroth for destroying Nibelheim and murdering her father, but her anger is directed more towards Shinra as a whole, and as she later confesses, her own personal hatred eventually dissipated and she opts to focus more on stopping Sephiroth and Shinra because of the great threat they represent to the world, not out of grudge. For his part, Sephiroth takes sadistic delight in taunting Tifa's limited ability to help Cloud, gaslights Cloud into trying to kill her out of paranoia and when that fails he just opts to kill her himself, failing only because she's protected by a Weapon. However, Sephiroth never acknowledges Tifa as a personal threat, only a minor obstacle in his attempts to manipulate Cloud.
• Ax-Crazy: Do not let his stoic, calm demeanor fool you. Sephiroth is a murderously unhinged Omnicidal Maniac who plans to destroy all of life and recreate it in his own image. This part of him is especially pronounced during the Nibelheim incident where he set fire to the entire town and murdered many townsfolk in his path.
• Bad Boss: In a manner of speaking, the Sephiroth Clones are his followers who act on his will. However, Sephiroth only views them as disposable pawns. He allows many of them die while carrying out his orders in situations where he could have easily saved them via Demonic Possession, but chooses not to.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • In Remake, Sephiroth convinces the party that the Arbiters of Fate must be stopped via context-less visions of the future that will happen if they "fail to stop them", thus freeing destiny up to be changed - just as Sephiroth intended. Also, the fight against Cloud during the game's finale ends with Sephiroth easily defeating Cloud. This means Sephiroth walked away at the end of Remake with the win, having gotten everything he wanted and defeating the heroes. The only reason that Remake has a Bittersweet Ending instead of a Downer Ending is because the good guys still have a chance to stop Sephiroth from enacting the rest of his plan.
  • Again, in Rebirth: Sephiroth's merging of Cloud and Zack's differing timelines lets him brute force his way into killing Aerith again, ensuring fate goes his way instead of the party's. Even after the end of his super long Boss Rush, he leaves less because he's overwhelmed and more because he doesn't want to put in the effort to defeat them when he knows he's already won. However, ambiguity over whether or not another version of Aerith was saved in an adjacent timeline, and hopeful hints at her and Cloud reuniting, show it may not have been a total victory for Sephiroth.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: His murder of President Shinra, one of the major antagonists of Remake. Though everyone wanted Shinra to face justice for his crimes rather than outright be killed, Sephiroth does remove a major enemy of the party.
• Battle Aura: Has an intimidating aura of purple energy when he powers up by absorbing Meteor. If anything it is more intimidating that he dismisses it casually, showing that all that power means little to him.
• Beneath the Mask: Sephiroth manages to go all of Remake appearing Affably Evil, keeping his new motives ambiguous and treating Cloud in a manner that sends mixed messages about whether he wants revenge or wants Cloud to rule at his side. In Rebirth, this affable mask starts to slip, as he dials up his gaslighting in ways that are increasingly cruel and sometimes even petty, while Cloud under his control becomes an unabashed sadist. At the end of the game, when Cloud correctly points out that the Planet isn't rejoicing at having all of the timelines crammed together into one, it's screaming in agony, the mask fully comes off and Sephiroth spends the rest of the game engaging in cold-blooded torture out of anger at being told he's wrong, to such a degree that it alters his fighting style to be about inflicting as much pain as possible rather than actually winning the fight.
• Big Bad: Like the original game, he is the main antagonist of the remake though he doesn’t fully become this until the end of part 1.
• Big Bad Ensemble: He, alongside the Shinra Electric Power Company, both share the main villain position at the end of part 1.
• Blade Spam: His Octaslash skill has him unleash a flurry of eight slashes from his sword. Some of his regular sword strikes also show multiple slash lines, similar to his moveset in Dissidia. In Rebirth, he gains an additional Octaslash called Octaslash Prime, a flurry of slashes that creates a vortex of wind after the original move.
• BFS: Sephiroth's weapon-of-choice is the Masamune, a nodachi as long as he is tall. It's capable of effortlessly slicing through almost any material, and he can swing it with one hand fast enough to parry a slash from Cloud's Buster Sword.
• Canon Character All Along: Bizarrely enough, it's implied this is the exact same Sephiroth from the original game who not only knows what's going to happen, but seems to have devised a new means of attaining his goal and preventing Avalanche from defeating him. His reaction to Gilgamesh also insinuates he's the same version from all of the other spinoffs.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Despite having Cloud at his mercy more than once, Sephiroth lets him live because he says that he needs his strength to defy destiny. This is also shown in that he doesn't kill his party members when he has the chance, if they died in a way that wouldn't break down Cloud he wouldn't take the risk of making Cloud more determined to fight him. Best shown in that he repeatedly gaslights Cloud into thinking Tifa is an imposter until Cloud attacks her in a daze, Sephiroth nearly kills Tifa himself as she is carried by the Weapon after Cloud saw it eat her but doesn't try any other time.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Compared to his Godhood Seeker mindset in the original game where he couldn't give less of a damn for anything but Jenova, Sephiroth knows how much Cloud hates him and willingly plays the role of an antagonist to the ex-SOLDIER while openly demonstrating just how immoral he could be if he feels like it. The prime example: the first thing Sephiroth does on screen is go into detail to Cloud on how good it felt to slice up Cloud's mother while Cloud watched.
• Casting a Shadow: His Shadow Flare attack has him conjure explosive orbs of darkness.
• Casting Gag: His previous long-term voice actor (George Newbern) was best known for voicing Superman. Sephiroth's new actor? Tyler Hoechlin is also known for his recent work in live-action...as Superman. Tyler also played Martin Brewer in the early 2000s show 7th Heaven.
• Characterization Marches On: In the original game, Sephiroth had little characterization of any kind, nor personal connection to the party beyond Cloud just being his most convenient pawn. This Sephiroth is rather petty, actively rubs his superiority in everyone's faces while also messing with all of them via half-truths, repeatedly screws with Cloud's head mostly for kicks instead of just solely to manipulate him, and so on. While he's still very much an egomaniac, he has grown to understand how everyone around him ticks, even if as The Sociopath it's all surface level for his machinations, and while he still fucks with Cloud, he also knows full well what the young man is capable of, providing both sympathies and the occasional offer of allegiance while trying to align Cloud towards his own ends for more than just the Black Materia delivery. The result is a much more intricately exploitative bastard who shows his hand more blatantly because he knows the heroes can't do much about it, and one that now seeks to rule the world to make himself eternal while keeping a higher cosmic influence from ever taking away that power, even if he has to create countless alternate timelines and then mash them all together with countless death tolls for his ultimate outcome.
• Child Soldier: In Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis a 15-year-old Sephiroth was deployed for the first time and saved Glenn Lodbrok, Lucia Lin, and Matt Winsord from being overwhelmed by Rhadorian soldiers, delivering an effortless Curb-Stomp Battle to the enemy troops. Following this, he took part in the broader Wutai War, becoming renowned as a legendary war-hero.
• Colony Drop: While inside the Shinra virtual reality presentation, Avalanche is shown a vision of Meteor destroying Midgar, and at the start of the final boss fight in Remake Sephiroth absorbs Meteor to power himself up. Also during the final battle's last phase, he'll use his Divine Proclamation skill, summoning a meteor and beginning a nine second countdown. If the party doesn't defeat him before the countdown ends, the meteor will drop on the party for a One-Hit Kill.
• The Comically Serious: When paired up with the endlessly energetic Zack Fair, though he takes his chipperness all in stride.
• Counter-Attack: His Scintilla skill has him drop into a defensive stance and retaliate with a flurry of slashes if struck, similar to Cloud's Counterstance.
• Cryptic Conversation: At the end of the first game, he leaves Cloud with confusing words which never go explained in-game after their final duel at the Edge of Creation.
  Sephiroth: Seven seconds till the end. Time enough for you. Perhaps. But what will you do with it? Let's see.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: His scuffles with Cloud at the end of Remake has him deliver this: Their first one-on-one duel has Sephiroth casually mocking Cloud the entire time and soon knocking him down. Even after having been seemingly beaten by him and the entire party, when they get to duel one last time, Sephiroth easily toys with him, countering all of his blows with Cloud hardly even making him move at all from his spot; and when he has enough, he instantly pushes Cloud back and disarms him. Notably, this is the only time that any work has Sephiroth ending the fight unquestionably victorious.
• Deadpan Snarker: While usually serious, he has his moments. Even after he goes insane, he retains a rather twisted sense of dull humor.
  Tifa: Man, I wish I could go on trips all over the world like you guys...
  Sephiroth: (Beat) "Trips?" I think you mean "business trips" - which are no fun at all!
  [...]
  Cloud: You're not real...you're...dead.
  Sephiroth: [in the smuggest, faux-surprised voice] I am?
• Death from Above: His Hell's Gate attack has him leaping into the air and stabbing the ground with his sword, creating large shockwaves in six directions. In the final boss fight of Rebirth, he replaces the shockwaves with an explosion of Whispers.
• Demonic Possession: As the Sephiroth Clones have fully succumbed to the control of the Jenova cells inside them, Sephiroth can not only control them at will, but resculpt their appearance to match his own.
• Didn't See That Coming: He has this happen to him four times in Rebirth, with each eliciting a different response:
  • The first time is when he attacks the WEAPON that's sheltering Tifa and, for once, he actually has trouble in dislodging the sword from the beast's body. He actually visibly panics a bit at this.
  • The second time is when he possesses a robed man and impales Tseng. As he gloats to the party that they will soon join him in death, Tseng shows he is Not Quite Dead and shoots him in the back. Sephiroth's face shows shock and disbelief right before his body dies.
  • The third time occurs in the forest surrounding the Forgotten Capital, when Aerith retrieves the fully charged White Materia Cloud received from her alternate self to replace the one that Sephiroth successfully depowered. Sephiroth calls the action poor form, proving a Sore Loser about having his multiversal schemes turned against him.
  • The fourth time occurs during the final battle, when Aerith, who Sephiroth had seemingly just killed, appears to fight alongside Cloud against him. Sephiroth actually admits that her appearance has thrown him for a loop and that he underestimated her.
• Dimensional Cutter: He can make portals by slicing the air.
• Dissonant Serenity:
  • When Cloud first "encounters" him, Sephiroth is casual and calm while standing in an alleyway that's gone up in flames. ^note This is all revealed to be a hallucination.
  • He's comically nonchalant about strolling into the Shinra building while ignoring most of the security, to the point where he's not shown to have even killed anyone until the President's office.
• The Dreaded: The mere sight of Sephiroth walking through the hallways of Shinra's headquarters causes Palmer to drop his tea in shock.
• Duel Boss:
  • Subverted during the final fight with him in Remake. Cloud initially faces him one-on-one, but then two of his teammates (depending on how much you used them during the preceding fight against Whisper Harbinger) intervene on his side.
  • In Rebirth a few of his phases as Sephiroth Reborn are fought with Cloud and Zack alone.
• Elemental Powers: In the third phase of the battle with him, he can change up his elemental affinity between Fire, Ice, Lightning, and Wind, giving himself attacks in that elemental but a weakness to the opposing element. After cycling through all four, he infuses himself with all four elements and gains resistance to all of them.
• Entitled Bastard: Despite all his declarations of godhood this is what he is at the center of his motivations. After learning his true origins, he considers the Planet and everyone on it his property by right. In Rebirth his pleas to Cloud to defy destiny and merge worlds to save the planet and its children seem less about concern for the fate of the planet and more about the universe continuing without him when it enters the cycle of death and rebirth.
• Establishing Character Moment: In this version, he makes his first appearance shortly after the mission to blow up the Sector 1 Reactor, and immediately proceeds to guide Cloud through an illusion he creates of a burning alleyway leading up to Nibelheim, and taunts him with his murder of his mother. Afterwards, he tells Cloud to run and live with his hatred.^note To rub further salt in the wound, the Ultimania makes clear that him telling Cloud to run and that he has to live is him repeating Claudia's final words to Cloud before she was killed It shows his crueler demeanor as well as reintroduces the player to his obsession with Cloud.
• Everyone Has Standards: When he discovers the testing pods for the Makonoids in the Nibelheim Reactor, he's absolutely livid with Tranquil Fury, expressing sheer disgust and hatred for what Hojo had done since it's absolutely horrific to put live humans inside pods filled with mako just to see how they mutate. Unfortunately for the world at large, this and seeing Jenova's name inside the reactor also causes him to have a "Eureka!" Moment at realizing he's similarly born to be a superhuman weapon through experiments too.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Rebirth demonstrates that for all his cunning and manipulation of Cloud, he doesn't quite understand him or his friends as well as he thinks. And this repeatedly bites him in the ass on several occasions.
  • He continuously gaslights Cloud into thinking Tifa is a Jenova copy, culminating in him attacking her into the Lifestream and eaten by a Weapon. Rather than break their bonds like his betrayals destroyed his, Tifa realizes that more than ever Cloud needs her and resolves to stay by his side. This doesn't deter him much, and afterwards Sephiroth begins playing the other side and making Cloud look like a puppet of his will to her later.
  • He thinks that the Chihuahua-world Aerith is only trying to get one last bit of happiness with Cloud before he kills her, thinking she had accepted her fate. That Aerith was actually using their meeting to give Cloud the White Materia so that his Aerith would have the power to save him. This blunder costs Sephiroth so much that he actually admits he underestimated her.
  • In the climax of Rebirth, he believes his efforts of corrupting the Planet through merging worlds of The Multiverse together is something the Planet wants, and that its utter cacophony of sound it creates is some sort of "ecstasy" at giving it that. When Cloud points out that it's the voice of a Planet in pain and agony, Sephiroth sighs, calling out Cloud for still "not understanding him" before attacking Cloud mentally again as if out of spite for being called wrong since he still can't understand the Planet even after everything he's seen and done against it.
• Evil Counterpart: Like in the original, he shows himself as one to Cloud and Aerith.
  • Like Cloud, he was once a SOLDIER, being stronger, more durable and faster than any normal human- as well as being proficient with a giant blade. In gameplay, this even is translated as both sharing similar moves. Furthermore, both want to defy fate, but Sephiroth does so for his own sake, while Cloud does it for the sake of his friend Zack.
  • Like Aerith, he has special magic powers granted by his lineage from a bygone era that stand out from regular Materia- his dark magic from Jenova when compared to Aerith's holy powers from the Ancients. Also, they both have the knowledge of the fate of their original counterparts, especially their deaths. However, he seeks to undo his fate while she seemingly resigns herself to it and accepts what is to come. In Rebirth both take Cloud on otherworldly journeys and use their powers to alter worlds to affect Cloud's mind, but where Aerith benevolently soothes his fragile psyche and has him take the White Materia across dimensions, Sephiroth uses his to fracture him and gives him the Black Materia as a ploy to show his domination of Cloud's mind.
• Evil Is Bigger: Downplayed compared to most examples. Sephiroth isn't a giant, but he is still noticeably taller and bulkier than the heroes, sans Barret. Sephiroth Reborn, meanwhile, is a giant, one big enough that an early part of the fight involves doing a Colossus Climb.
• Evil Is Petty: A number of things he does towards Cloud just to Troll him come off as this, though considering this seemingly makes him stronger, it's no wonder he goes out of his way for it. It reaches the point that after having killed Aerith, Sephiroth flicks the blood-stained Masamune at her and Cloud just to launch the blood off towards them and piss Cloud off further to try to get the intended reaction, mocking him all the while. He also commits yet another Mind Rape on Cloud when he's confronted on not understanding the pain of the Planet, as if actually being genuinely petty at being disagreed with.
• Evil Laugh: In Rebirth, he gives a haunting laugh after Cloud deflects his attempt to murder Aerith, only for a timeline distortion to seemingly reverse this and allow him to kill her anyway. He gives another one as he escapes after the final battle.
• Fallen Hero: As shown in Rebirth, Sephiroth was a veteran of the Wutai War and an all-around stand-up guy until he discovered Jenova at the Nibelheim Mako Reactor—which doubled as one of Professor Hojo's research facilities for creating monsters—and read Professor Gast's research notes on her discovery and the inception of the Jenova Project. After this, Sephiroth snapped and razed Nibelheim to the ground, killing anyone who stood in his way or even just happened to cross his path.
• Faux Affably Evil: Bizarrely, his treatment of Cloud in Remake is akin to that of greeting an old friend/rival more than the hated Arch-Enemy he is determined to destroy from before. He even expresses his wish for Cloud to run away and survive; however, given this is still Sephiroth and Aerith's own affirmations that he is just as evil as ever, it's quite easy to see his plans for Cloud and Avalanche are not at all benign in nature. His taunting of Cloud in the final stretch of Rebirth reconfirms that he is quite as nasty and narcissistic as ever, whatever affection he holds for him being entirely self-serving, treating him like a toy.
• Feather Flechettes: During the final battle of Remake's last phase, he can fire the feathers from his wing as projectiles which will stun the character you're currently controlling.
• Fighting a Shadow: He is killed at several points in Rebirth, only for it to be a Sephiroth Clone he possessed.
• Final Boss:
  • He's the last enemy the player faces as the party makes their escape from Midgar.
  • Ups the ante in Rebirth, where three different version of him (as confirmed by the Enemy Intel page) are fought, with the second version being tackled by Cloud, the party, and Zack in multiple stages.
• Flash Step: Could easily be mistaken for teleporting in battle, were it not for the motion blur.
• Gaslighting: In Rebirth, Sephiroth makes use of this to weaken Cloud's grip on his identity and his trust in his allies. He insinuates that Tifa is a Jenova copy until Cloud attempts to kill her in a paranoid fit, and then begins to cast doubt on Cloud's own emotional state, either calling him a hollow puppet or a deluded lunatic.
• Glass Cannon: Fitting Sephiroth's nature as a villain whose threat is mostly in how much power other people give him over them, he has easily the weakest defenses of any boss in the game: he's a simple Barrier Change Boss who's vulnerable to a wide variety of counters, goes into Pressured status whenever he takes damage, and his stagger gauge is extremely small. Much of the danger in fighting him is the scope, speed, and ferocity of his attacks causing the player to lose track of how to respond, with the final phase adding a countdown to add even more pressure. Subverted during his time as a Guest-Star Party Member, when he is a Nigh-Invulnerable Lightning Bruiser. During his proper boss fight in Rebirth, he is both stronger and more powerful and easier to pressure and stagger. If he is pressured, Sephiroth is far easier to knock around than before.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Rebirth shows that Sephiroth was originally a pretty nice guy as far as supersoldiers go, but discovering his "mother" Jenova contained in a Mako Reactor that had been used as a bioweapons laboratory by Hojo led to him worrying that he was something other than human. Reading Professor Gast's notes on Jenova's discovery—which incorrectly deduced that she was a Cetra—and the inception of the Jenova Project caused him to snap and go on a rampage to "rescue" her.
• Gone Horribly Right: Throughout the games he attempts to undermine Cloud's grip on reality and make him question all that he feels. At the end of Rebirth Cloud's grip on reality is so in flux that he completely disregards the fact that some version of Aerith did die in his arms and that Zack shows up alongside him in the final battle, flipping his manipulations around so much that it wraps around into being an asset for Cloud. Wisely, he decides to cut his losses and let Cloud stew on his desire to stop him so that his grip on reality remains Sephiroth's asset and not his.
• Gravity Master: At one point during his Remake battle, he uses a powerful Gravity spell to pin Cloud and either Aerith or Tifa to the ground. He then attempts to kill Cloud, but Aerith, Tifa, or Barret knock him away, cancelling the spell.
• Greater-Scope Villain: For Part 1, with Aerith even pointing out that Shinra is a minor issue compared to him. He isn't the Big Bad of the Midgar section, but he has his hands still involved, even if he only appears a few times. Like with the original game, once the heroes leave Midgar, he becomes the Big Bad.
• Guest-Star Party Member: In Rebirth, he's a playable party member during a flashback, and unlike the original game, he can be directly controlled.
• Hates Their Parent: While it is ambigous if Sephiroth knows his biological father is Hojo, he has nothing but contempt for him, feeling he is a bundle of complexes taking over the work of a great man.
• Hellish Pupils: Sephiroth's pupils are catlike slits, as shown off in closeups of his face, evidence that he's not entirely human.
• Hero Killer: In the climax of Rebirth, he manages to seemingly kill Aerith yet again, just as he did in the original game's timeline by distorting time to force the outcome of his blade piercing into Aerith despite Cloud managing to block the killing blow. However, there's a lot of ambiguity on whether or not he truly finished the job thanks to the existence of branching timelines, and because Aerith is still shown to live in some form.
• Hidden Depths: While he mostly keeps to himself, he has a few notable traits and quirks he reveals once he lets someone get to know him better:
  • He takes absolutely meticulous care of his long hair. According to his fanclub (which may or may not have been started by Hojo himself), he uses up an entire bottle of shampoo and conditioner per day to keep it perfectly flowing. The shampoo is reportedly even scented with rose and vanilla!
  • Despite growing up in Midgar, he's appears to be a nature lover. He's awestruck by the beauty and serenity of Nibelheim's mountains.
  • He wasn't above playing incredibly, hilariously stupid games with Genesis and Angeal. One game involved placing a dumbapple on one of their heads, with the other two throwing swords at it to score points. Naturally, Sephiroth always won...which really makes you wonder how the other two survived losing with their heads still attached.
• Hijacked by Ganon: While he was always the Big Bad of Final Fantasy VII, the Midgar sequence focused on the battle with Shinra until the very end, when the party left town to pursue Sephiroth. In Remake, he instead appears in person to the party as they escape and serves as the Final Boss.
• Hijacking Cthulhu: He possesses some form of control or influence over Jenova and those infused with her cells.
• HP to One: His Signature Move, Heartless Angel, has him throw his sword to the ground, creating an AOE that will sap the health of anyone caught in it.
• Humanoid Abomination: Sephiroth's long silver hair and cat-like eyes are already major cues he isn't a normal human, but this game amplifies it. When Aerith first sees him, she sternly notes "everything about [him] is wrong," and tells the others that the Lifestream itself is furious at Sephiroth because of who and what he is. In battle, he's an "Unreadable" enemy — the same as the Whispers, Summons, and Jenova.
• Immortality Seeker: The only part of his goals that are clear is that he outright tells Cloud that he wants to live forever. Interestingly, Sephiroth also tells Cloud that he desires to have Cloud live forever too. Rebirth expounds on this, as the natural cycle of worlds means that even his own ability to avoid dissipating into the Lifestream is only a stopgap measure until the world is recreated. His plan is to hijack the Lifestream and create an eternal world where the only thing that exists is himself.
• Kamehame Hadoken: One of his new moves in Rebirth is the Whisper Cannon, a stream of Whispers thrown out of his cupped hands.
• Kick the Dog: For supposedly trying to have Cloud more on his side this go around, many things he does in Rebirth to further his agenda are so utterly cruel that he's gone beyond the original game's attempts to inflict a Despair Event Horizon and is seemingly doing everything he possibly can to psychologically break Cloud, knowing exactly how he ticks now. Cloud's Sanity Slippage kicks in earlier, is notably nastier, and works towards potentially worse consequences as a result.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Not even the mighty One-Winged Angel is immune to making a rare strategic retreat. At the end of Rebirth's final boss fight, Sephiroth is forced down to a knee by an invigorated Cloud and a White Materia-empowered Aerith who has gained command of her own Whispers. Evidently not prepared to keep taking on both opponents in his current state, Sephiroth decides to fight another day with the acknowledgment that he underestimated Aerith.
• Laser Blade: Sephiroth Reborn is given a new trick in the ability to conjure one of these from his upper body, which he uses to perform his Zanshin.
• Limit Break: In Rebirth his Limit Break is Octaslash. He also has a newly upgraded extension to it, Octaslash Prime, which can be used with a Triangle press immediately after Octaslash.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Sephiroth possesses an eerie, otherworldly beauty that is emphasized by his long silver hair. It makes him look more androgynous than Cloud (who is also very pretty, himself).
• Magic Knight: Sephiroth's magical prowess is just as much as a problem as his swordsmanship. He starts out using the highest level of elemental magic, always opening with Firaga, and will prioritize using magic over his sword to trick players that mindlessly use Cloud's counterattacks and are expecting him to fight like he's usually been portrayed by aggressively rushing with his sword at the start, leading to many unobservant players getting smacked with a fireball at the start of the fight. As the fight continues, he gets to show off spells unique to himself as well as an entirely different form of Elemental Infusion that no one else showed in the game with new elemental spells to pack it all up. He's actually way more vulnerable to being put into a punishable state when he's using Masamune than when he's casually under-handing high level spells at the player.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right: It's indicated that Sephiroth wants to defy destiny in order to avert his future defeat.
• Manipulative Bastard: Shows the heroes visions of Meteor destroying Midgar which convinces them that the Arbiters of Fate wanting to keep this future in motion means that they need to change the future. This leaves it possible for him to change the future in his favor.
• Master of Illusion: He torments Cloud with hallucinations and visions throughout the game, such as reminding him of Nibelheim's destruction. He also somehow hijacks Shinra's VR suite to show Cloud, Barret, and Tifa a vision of him summoning Meteor to destroy Midgar.
• Master Swordsman: Sephiroth's ability with the Masamune is legendary, just the fact he can use such a massive blade is proof of his skill. During the final battle in Remake, he deflects Cloud's attacks so effortlessly sometimes he literally has it resting on his shoulder.
• Mirror Boss: His movelist, particularly in the first phase, can make you feel like fighting an evil version of Cloud's. Appropriately because their strength comes from the same source.
• Momma's Boy: While it's not as prevalent in the main game, flashbacks to the Nibelheim Incident show Sephiroth still sees Jenova as his mother and seeks to conquer the Planet in her honor.
• Multiversal Conqueror: In Rebirth, Sephiroth reveals that he's no longer interested in just conquering the Planet and turning it into his vessel; he wants to conquer the Final Fantasy VII branch of the multiverse by causing all the disparate timelines to merge together.
• Mystical White Hair: Sephiroth's knee-length silvery-white hair is a product of the process that created him, and is evidence of his malevolent nature.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Referencing Crisis Core, his Octaslash limit break makes a comeback as a skill during the final boss fight, and is his Limit Break during his playable segment in Rebirth. Also, one of his attacks has him fire off the feathers from his wing as projectiles, much like Genesis did during his first boss fight.
  • Referencing Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, some of his lines — "On your knees." and "Shall I bring you despair?" — are quotes from the movie. He also manipulates corrupted Lifestream and sprouts his iconic black wing when unleashing his full power.
  • Referencing Dissidia Final Fantasy (2015), a majority of Sephiroth’s attacks during the final boss fight and his playable guest party member segment in Rebirth take inspiration from his moveset in that game, with attacks such as “Telluric Fury”, “Aeolian Onslaught”, “Scintilla”, “Shadow Flare”, and his iconic “Hell's Gate” acting as they originally functioned with some minor alterations. Also one of his regular attacks has him fire three purple sword beams, a reference to his Zanshin Bravery Attack.
  • The opening cutscene of his showdown with Cloud at the End of the World parallels the cutscene that plays during the final showdown between him and Cloud at the end of the original Final Fantasy VII. Moreover, the final attack Cloud attempts on Sephiroth at the End of the World is clearly Omnislash, or at least some nascent version of it. Sephiroth effortlessly dodges every would-be hit, then scolds Cloud with a smug "Not yet."
• Never My Fault: Throughout Rebirth, it becomes clear that Sephiroth is willing to do just about anything to Make Wrong What Once Went Right, except change anything about his own bad behaviors. The result is that even when he overcomes old obstacles, his arrogance and inability to understand other people simply creates new problems for him, ranging from throwing away an easy victory by simply letting the Midgardsormr kill Cloud, to giving Rufus the opportunity to realize he's been had because Sephiroth can't help but come to him in Glenn's guise yet again just to gloat.
• Nice Guy: Much like his original iteration, before he went completely mad Sephiroth was well known among SOLDIER and the citizens of Midgar for his bravery, empathy and kindness. And despite his at-times aloof nature, was a good friend to other SOLDIER mainstays like Genesis, Angeal and Zack. Even Barret angrily admits that it sounds he was a stand-up guy before he descended into insanity as Cloud was recounting his "experiences" with him, making it just a touch harder to completely hate him.
• Not So Stoic: Whereas Sephiroth in the original game was practically unable to be budged from his position of self-importance after his Sanity Slippage, multiple cases in Rebirth actually catch him off-guard. He has to put on a tough gambit against Rufus and pretend to be Glenn, who is anything but stoic in his attempts to ruthlessly guilt trip the new ruler for his manipulations, and he genuinely falters during cases like his accidental summoning of Gilgamesh, when Tseng kills a clone he was actively controlling after he expected the Turk to be down and out, or when an empowered Aerith manages to catch him off-guard in the final battle when she joins Cloud to give him a much deserved beating. It's easily missed, but his eyes also widen in surprise when Cloud continues to block his infamous attack on Aerith at the Forgotten Capital, followed by Cloud summoning the strength to disarm him.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: From his cryptic musings, he implies that there are greater cosmic forces in the Final Fantasy VII universe ^note forces that may have sent Jenova and then the Meteor or did something even worse, and his main goal is to kill them all. And unfortunately, that just leaves the possibility that he wants to usurp them and become a god.
  Sephiroth: Our world will become a part of it one day. But I will not end.
• Not So Invincible After All: Throughout Remake and Rebirth, Sephiroth appears to be an almost unmatchable force, easily besting Cloud every time they fight and manipulating him all the while. At the climax of Rebirth, Aerith's control over the White Whispers allows her to aid Cloud and Zack in their battles with him, and shows up in person to aid Cloud when Sephiroth shows his true form. Sephiroth is so taken back by her actions that he admits to underestimating her and the following battle ends with his defeat, even forcing him down to one knee and retreating.
• Obviously Evil: To a bigger extent than in the original, who first appears in person during a flashback sequence where he was still a hero. Here, Cloud bumps into a hallucination of him in the middle of Midgar's streets, and he proceeds to guide him through burning alleys, all while his ominous theme "Those Chosen By the Planet" is playing. Coupled with his unnatural, cat-like eyes and black outfit, it becomes clear he is the villain even for those who have never played or heard of the original game.
• One-Winged Angel:
  • Averted in Remake proper. Despite being the trope namer he DOESN'T do this. While he does gain his black wing, he never turns into a giant monster and keeps a human form for the entire fight.
  • Zig-zagged in his final boss fight in Rebirth, where he transforms into Sephiroth Reborn (known as Bizarro Sephiroth in the original game in English) to fight the party after a round of battle in his normal form, but reverts back for the final phase.
• Perpetual Molt: Throughout Remake, a single black feather almost always heralds Sephiroth's presence. At the climax of the game, he also appears surrounded by dozens of feathers... Strangely, these feathers appear before Sephy has revealed his wing.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Surprisingly, rather than taunting Cloud overly about his failure to stop the collapse of the Seventh District's Plate and the death of his friends, Sephiroth actually displays him some sympathy in this case. He just calmly acknowledges his failure and while he does have a mocking tone, he tells Cloud in a surprisingly genuine way that through suffering, he'll get stronger, patting him and showing sincereness. Considering that he became like he was now because what he went through, you can see it as Sephiroth genuinely trying to motivate Cloud into accepting the pain and growing stronger.
  • In the finale, he reveals that while he still holds on to his dream of existing forever, he doesn't actually want to destroy Cloud anymore either. Seemingly to prove this, after defeating Cloud in a one-on-one duel, he spares Cloud rather than killing him. Of course, this could just mean Sephiroth still wants to manipulate Cloud to do his bidding, as in the previous version of events.
• Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: He's amazingly polite to Cloud in each of their meetings, treating him as though he's a friend. Cloud, on the other hand, is as hostile as ever thanks to Sephiroth's past villainy.
• The Power of Hate: His main goal in Rebirth, besides trying to enact the Meteorfall plan with more favorable conditions and converge worlds for him to rule over, is drawing in on the hatred and anger of the souls of the Planet so that he can more readily take control over it seemingly. To do this, he goes beyond simply antagonizing Cloud and the party, and pretends to be a new military leader of Wutai as a seemingly-revived Glenn solely to drive a new war between Wutai and Shinra to make sure there's as much death and suffering as humanly possible to help accelerate his plans.
• Power of the Void: His Boundless Void attack has him create a small black hole that will restrain one of your party members if they're caught by it.
• Promoted to Playable: Sephiroth is a fully playable party member in Chapter 1 of Rebirth, and later in an exceptionally tough gauntlet via Chadley's combat simulator.
• Psychotic Smirk: He's never seen without a contemptuously smug smile on his face.
• Purple Is Powerful: Many of the effects surrounding him and his attacks are covered in purple energy. Notably, purple is the only color associated with him and Jenova, as the protagonists and Shinra have blues. yellows, and red.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Sephiroth's been presumed dead for years, hence Cloud's shock at seeing him apparently alive and well.
• Screw Destiny: Sephiroth maintains that he wants to save the Planet by defying destiny, and scolds Cloud for failing to stop the Sector 7 plate from being dropped.
• Shut Up, Kirk!: In Rebirth, while possessing Cloud at the Temple of the Ancients, Sephiroth listens in on Aerith as she makes a heartfelt speech about how true strength isn't forged from hatred and obsession over the past, but the ability to forgive and to focus on creating a better future. Speaking through Cloud, Sephiroth disdainfully asks, "Are you done?" at the end of Aerith's speech, clearly irked by her words because she essentially just insulted the very essence of what made him who he is: a man so consumed by his obsessive hatred that he turned into a monster. A similar exchange happens in the final battle, where Aerith asks And Then What? will Sephiroth have at the end of his schemes but unending loneliness. Sephiroth's answer is to tell her to be quiet, as her role in them has ended.
• The Sociopath: As noted by Aerith, he isn't affected by the emotions of people around him at all. The fact he honestly asks Cloud to join him despite burning down Cloud's hometown and killing Cloud's mother and gloating about it speaks volumes to how little he understands or cares about others emotions. However, it is shown in Rebirth that he wasn't always so detached; he detested Hojo for his experiments on people, and tried searching for the Infantryman swept away by the river on Mt. Nibel, and even expresses regret over his failure to find him.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Sephiroth never raises his voice beyond a calmly smug tone, even as he's telling Cloud to remember how his mother died or mocking him over his failures.
• Stance System: As a playable character in Rebirth, Sephiroth can alternate between his regular moveset and Retaliation Stance—which lets him parry oncoming attacks.
• Strong and Skilled: The main reason why this time the heroes can't defeat him even when he is still clearly not going all-out. In the original game, they defeated him in his Safer-Sephiroth form but that form was simply throwing his raw power at the party. Here, Sephiroth is not only heavily indicated to be more powerful than ever, but he is also fought at his human form, meaning that extraordinary power is backed up with an incredible amount of seasoned skill and veteran experience that one would expect from the greatest SOLDIER.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Sephiroth in a nutshell pre-Nibelheim. He outwardly gave the impression of someone who was cold, aloof and perpetually stoic. But in fact, this was largely because he wasn't exactly a people-person, and was a good man with a whole heap of internal conflict who cared deeply for his friends.
• Super-Soldier: Sephiroth was the premier member of SOLDIER's First Class prior to his disappearance, and his white hair and catlike eyes further distinguish him from lesser SOLDIERs like Roche and Cloud.
• Sword Beam: One of his unnamed attacks involves sending shockwaves of purple energy out with his sword slashes. The fact that they go unnamed implies that it just happens without any real effort on his part. This doubles as another reference to Dissidia, where throwing out sword beams was a staple of his moveset. The move is given a name in Rebirth as Zanshin.
• A Taste of Power: At the start of Rebirth for the Nibelheim flashback, he's playable like in the original game. Unlike the original, he's able to take damage and isn't a One-Hit Kill for threats in his path, instead becoming a Difficult, but Awesome parry-centric fighter that can continuously chain his attacks together like an utter damage machine, tearing Stagger bars up and getting insane damage if you can properly keep him from being momentarily stunned by damage. It still readily showcases that he's simply Always Someone Better to the fresh-faced Cloud five years prior, as in leagues beyond him.
• They Killed Kenny Again: In Rebirth, he gets killed several times by Cloud and the party, once by Tseng, and once by Rufus. Each time, it was just him possessing a Sephiroth Clone, so he treats it as a minor inconvenience before he gets another body.
• Time-Limit Boss: In Remake, drop his health down to critical levels, he'll summon Meteor and start counting down. If his countdown reaches 0, Meteor will Total Party Kill, incentivizing you to quickly defeat Sephiroth. In Rebirth, at critical health he begins firing dual Whisper Cannons and rotating in a circle while otherwise standing perfectly still, with his Stagger meter turning blue and beginning to drain on its own. If the Stagger meter fully drains, he instantly kills the party with a 9999 damage version of Octaslash Prime.
• Troll:
  • Most of the time he just shows up to mock and scare Cloud before leaving. Most of it is part of his plan, but sometimes he's clearly just being an asshole only because he thinks its hilarious. It's especially apparent when Cloud isn't the victim. The prime examples are him scaring the shit out of Palmer by just choosing to walk past him while ignoring him, scaring a bunch of kids with one of his creepy clones in Sector 5 before Cloud even showed up, or playing a silent "made you look" before teleporting and casually floating off to get Cloud to climb a big ladder on the top of the Shinra building and halfassedly jumping off with a smile when Cloud almost gets to the top.
  • It turns out in Rebirth that this is actually part of his motives; by drawing on The Power of Hate, he seems to grow stronger, akin to how in Advent Children the despair and pain of those infected by Geostigma empowered memories towards him. By being as much of a Hate Sink as he can possibly be, such as starting a False Flag Operation to ensure a bloody new war happens between Wutai and Shinra, or by trying to egg on and piss off the main party, every trope such as For the Evulz or Evil Is Petty serves his goals and empowers him further if he gets the corresponding reactions. Which is why he's actually somewhat annoyed that Cloud not seeing Aerith dead like everyone else is undermining that entire point.
• Unskilled, but Strong: In Rebirth his new powers and control over the Whispers have gone to his head, making him more reliant on displays of strength and Whisper attacks that are far easier to deal with than the more efficient but weaker moves in Remake. Concentrating more of his power in his wing and Masamune also gives him notable weaknesses to exploit, something far harder to take advantage of in the preceding game. As Sephiroth Reborn this is even more apparent, as all of his human form's moves are "enhanced" into versions that are bigger, slower, and far less accurate. Zanshin Profane's Sword Beam attacks are twice the size of the normal Zanshin's, but move with less than half of the velocity, and Hell's Gate produces a large glowing spot on the ground where it's going to strike that stops moving well before the attack actually arrives.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Played with in Rebirth. While Sephiroth is presented as even stronger overall than he was in Remake, his swordsmanship skills have begun to atrophy as he leans into his new powers instead, to his detriment. The final phase of his fight in Rebirth has very simple patterns to block or dodge, with reliance on excessively flashy skewering techniques and shows of force using Whispers as projectiles that leave him vulnerable, in contrast to the overwhelmingly fast and brutal assault he preferred in Remake. There are even times that he will abandon the Masamune altogether, giving Cloud and Aerith an opportunity to destroy it to weaken him. His wing serves as a similar weak point, when he once had no such weaknesses. As if to demonstrate, the final round of Rulers of the Outer Worlds is a copy of Sephiroth with no wing and using essentially the same tactics that he used in Remake, making him a vastly more difficult opponent than his Rebirth incarnation.
• Villainous Rescue:
  • In Remake, he stabs President Shinra from behind while he has a gun trained on the party.
  • In Rebirth, he defeats the Midgardsormr and rescues Cloud from drowning.
• Villain Override: He can assume control of Sephiroth Clones in order to perform tasks, such as assassinating President Shinra.
• Villain Respect:
  • In the original game, Sephiroth was infamously very dismissive of Cloud as a Spanner in the Works for his plans, only really manipulating him because he was an optimal pawn on the board at the time and then growing to hate him by Advent Children. Here, while he loves to Troll Cloud and get a rise out of him, he very personally knows why Cloud hates him so much, and seems inclined to bring Cloud up to his level in his Immortality Seeker plan, sparing him after their final battle to keep him on the "right path" to their future and offering a We Can Rule Together.
  • He also grows to feel this way towards Aerith in Rebirth after she continues to hinder him by helping the party and Zack with her magic during the fight against his "Sephiroth Reborn" form and later show up in person for his final duel with Cloud to back him up.

Sephiroth: I must admit... I underestimated you.

• Walking Spoiler: While Sephiroth's existence and evil nature has been a part of gaming's Pop Culture Osmosis for ages, his role in the Remake and its Cosmic Retcon makes it hard to talk about him in length, other than that he's in the game.
• Weapon Specialization: Sephiroth has always had a thing for katanas. As a teenager he wielded a regular-sized one called Nameless, while as an adult he wields a massive nōdachi called the Masamune.
• We Can Rule Together: In his own words, with how sincere they are being up to debate:
  Sephiroth: Cloud, lend me your strength. Let us defy destiny... together.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: While trying to persuade Cloud to join him, Sephiroth claims to be fighting against fate itself to preserve the Planet. However, Aerith disagrees with his way of doing so as it would involve sacrificing those living and believes the planet does not wish for that.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Already one of the most famous examples of the trope there is, Sephiroth still has his silvery-white hair and is still as cruel and self-serving as ever.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Ironic, given that he infamously does exactly this trope to Aerith at one point. A Fatal Flaw of his is that he can't help but gloat and taunt the opponents that catch his interest, preferring to play mind games with them rather than just end them once and for all. This often backfires on him, as him playing with his food often means that his enemy or one of their allies has a chance to strike back at the opening and turn the tables.
• Winged Humanoid: When using his full power, he manifests a single black wing from his right shoulder.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: While it may not excuse his actions, the Remake continuity makes it hard to not symphathise with Sephiroth's backstory. Despite being isolated by his enhanced abilities, pre-breakdown he shows himself to be a good and heroic man with many redeeming qualities. Having no knowledge of the actual truth of his origins and parents due to being lied to his entire life (namely: his real parents, that he is human, and his abilities are a result of human experimentation in the womb to inject him with Mako and Jenova cells), he then stumbles across Shinra's research on Jenova with its incorrect conclusions and gets driven insane by the implications, with no one around who can correct him and assuage his worst fears about being inhuman. In fact, it's implied that even Sephiroth himself is actually aware of how far he has fallen deep down, considering how he mentions to Cloud about "through suffering, you will grow strong", that being perhaps the only time where he shows any kind of genuine empathy towards Cloud.
• World's Best Warrior: Just like in the original, Sephiroth is the greatest warrior in SOLDIER history, his accomplishments in Shinra's war with Wutai highly distinguishing himself as a hero, with it being said that he accomplished legendary feats that inspired countless people into joining the military. Being the most powerful man alive aside, he pretty much proves to also have the legendary combat skills to be the greatest warrior on the planet when he single-handedly fights in his human form against the entire party by himself and shows off incredible swordsmanship and magical abilities to hold them off while clearly not displaying all the abilities he had due to needing them in the future. Likewise, he proves himself to be truly the best warrior when he easily defeats Cloud, who has been able to defeat him numerous times before the remake, while still clearly toying with him.
• World's Strongest Man: Sephiroth is easily considered the strongest being on the planet to the point where most tall tales actually underestimate how powerful he is (rather than the other way around). He proves it in Remake, where he fights a five-on-one battle with the party harder than ever and holds his ground throughout most of the battle, while proving himself to be easily capable of handling Cloud one-on-one, giving him a Curb-Stomp Battle even when he did seemingly lose the fight with the party, and putting him and another one of his friends on the ropes until the complete party arrives. It was also evident he still wasn't fighting at full strength, as he makes it clear he still needs the party and Cloud alive for his future plans.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Subdued but still there in Rebirth, and twice at that. The first is when he realizes the White Materia is powered up again in this active timeline, after his use of the Whispers to strip Aerith's memories post-Remake seemingly depowered it. His remark of "Very poor form" practically comes off as being genuinely surprised and irritated that Aerith actually managed to use his own interdimensional tricks to swap the Materia and undo his plan, almost like complaining about a cheap move at chess. Then there's Aerith suddenly emerging from the Lifestream in the very final fight of the game to help Cloud, and they beat him this time, though in this case Sephiroth actually offers some Villain Respect towards her for managing this feat.

Jenova

"They say she's a monster. That she can peer inside you—into the very depths of your soul. That she can become those you hate. Those you fear. Those you love. "

—Sephiroth

A mysterious ancient entity being studied by Shinra, who believe her to be one of the Cetra.

---

• Adaptational Ugliness: Downplayed given she's always been a nightmarish alien parasite, but in the original game Jenova's monstrous forms all shared the same low-poly model, which showed it as an amorphous entity with a variety of colors around its body and a few tentacles emerging. Remake marks the first time these forms have been depicted beyond the original game, and they are depicted as far more gruesome and true Eldritch Abominations; they have oily, mottled, bulbous skin, parts of their bodies include protrusions of bone and visible inner tissue, and each one has a Skull for a Head with a sinister expression.
• Alien Blood: Compared to the original where the trail of her blood that Sephiroth left behind was normal red blood, this time around its a dark, scintillating purple that moves around as though it's alive and emits wisps of dark energy.
• Ambiguous Situation: How cognizant and sentient she is in the active plot is, like the original game, a complete anomaly. Especially since Sephiroth has ascended from merely following her plans of using the world like a ship to conquer other worlds, and now wants to rule the multiverse of the Planet as a whole, leaving that ambiguous as to whether this is just Jenova's whims influencing him or he's a full-on Dragon Ascendant using her for his new plans.
• Ancient Evil: Jenova is an Eldritch Abomination that arrived on the planet inside a meteor 2000 years before the present, devastated the Cetra's civilization, and was trapped in a glacier by the ice deity Shiva.
• Body Horror: Jenova's humanoid form might be considered attractive... were it not for the protruding veins and grotesque organ-like extrusions. Her monstrous form is downright nightmarish.
• Captured Super-Entity: Jenova is an ancient eldritch entity that is being kept and studied by Shinra under the misconception that she is one of the Cetra. Professor Hojo has dedicated half his life to studying her and the majority of his experiments involve infusing other life forms with her biomass to augment them.
• Combat Tentacles: All forms of Jenova make use of tentacles to attack, either summoning a writhing mass of them around the area or using the tentacles on their own body to swipe at the party.
• The Corruption: Those infused with Jenova's cells become more powerful, typically at the cost of mutating into horrifying monsters. Hojo has dedicated most of his life towards weaponizing this to create nightmarish bioweapons.
• The Corruptor: The ghosts of the Cetra in the Temple of the Ancients suggest that she might have seeded the hatred that caused the humans to attack them.
• Divergent Character Evolution: In the original game, Jenova's first three forms shared the same model, with only Jenova Synthesis having a unique design. In the Remake trilogy, only Dreamweaver retains the design. Each of Jenova's later forms start out the fight somewhat resembling Dreamweaver, but as the fight progress they mutate further into more distinct forms.
• The Dragon: She becomes this to Sephiroth near the end of part 1 and like the original game Sephiroth uses Jenova like a puppet and to disguise as Sephiroth himself.
• Eldritch Abomination: Jenova is introduced as a white-haired humanoid entity floating in a stasis tank, but is capable of assuming horrifically monstrous forms.
• Expy: Jenova is still pretty much a very expanded version of John Carpenter's The Thing. Now down to the little details such as blood that can move on its own.
• Frickin' Laser Beams: Carrying over from the original game, all forms of Jenova prominently attack with various kinds of rays, beams, and blasts of energy.
• Meat Puppet: It's indicated that — as in the original game — Sephiroth assumes control of her body and transforms it into a replica of his own. In Rebirth the transformation into Jenova Lifeclinger superimposes his form over Jenova's as he transforms it back.
• Mystical White Hair: Jenova's humanoid form possesses long white hair, though her true nature is anything but human.
• Mythology Gag: While her forms in Rebirth are much more mutated, all of them are based on the original game's model for Jenova's forms◊, with two wing-like appendages on the sides, a long neck jutting forward, and a wider lower body with tentacles emerging. Jenova Dreamweaver in particular is a dead ringer for the original design, and the vision of Jenova seen on murals in the Temple of the Ancients looks the same as well.
• People Jars: She is contained in a large stasis tank in the center of the Drum, a classified laboratory resembling a larger version of her containment chamber in the Nibelheim mako reactor. She escapes at the end of the game with Sephiroth's help, to Professor Hojo's delight.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Shiva's dossier reveals that Jenova was frozen in a glacier by the ice deity 2,000 years in the past.
• Shapeshifter Guilt Trip: How she originally infiltrated and destroyed the Cetra civilzation.
  Sephiroth: They say she's a monster. That she can peer inside you—into the very depths of your soul. That she can become those you hate. Those you fear. ...Those you love.
• Shapeshifter Swan Song: Her "corpse" looks to be the result of some severe shapeshifter Power Incontinence at the moment of or just before her supposed death given all the extra appendages, organs, eyeballs, protrusions and degradation and decomposition seen all over her body.
• Theme Naming: In the Japanese version and some other translations, its boss forms retain the life-themed naming of the original game, with Jenova-BIRTH, Jenova-LIFE, and the newly added Jenova-BEAT (as in heart beat). The English localizations instead go with Jenova Dreamweaver, Jenova Emergent, and Jenova Lifeclinger, but the theme still works because Dreamweaver is a new form of Jenova fought before its other incarnations appeared in the original game; "Dreamweaver" symbolizes that it hasn't yet fully manifested.
• The Virus: Jenova's biomass can infect other organisms, mutating them into horrific monsters. Hojo seeks to weaponize this property as a means of augmenting monsters and people alike.

Sephiroth Clones

In General

"The time…has come…for the…reunion…"

Hooded and robed figures who shamble around Midgar.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: It was heavily implied the Sephiroth Clones were deformed and heavily burned beneath their robes in the original game. Here, they look like normal, if somewhat ragged, people.
• Adaptational Badass: The Sephiroth Clones couldn't even move very fast in the original, or fight. Here, Sephiroth is able to turn them into powerful vessels of his will and power. Marco not only is the one to kill President Shinra and nearly Barret, but serves as a Climax Boss.
• Ambiguous Situation: Exactly how self-aware they are. Clearly, they are little more than puppets of Sephiroth who serve as his proxies and can do little beyond shambling around and muttering a few phrases based off their madness mantra. That being said, they show a degree of self-sufficient actions, as listed below under It Can Think. One even runs away from the fiend trying to merge with him at one point, plus others subtly react to their environmental changes. Despite this, it's not clear just how much influence Sephiroth exerts over them at all times.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: Several of the major clones are named characters who were exposed to Jenova's cells and eventually transformed into being zombie-like followers of Sephiroth.
• Ascended Extra: In the original game, the Sephiroth Clones were largely background elements you had to go out of your way to find who were there to act as subtle foreshadowing to the true nature of Cloud and Sephiroth. In Rebirth, they are the central figures of the entire plot, as all the major figures at play surmise that they are drawn to Sephiroth and follow their lead in an endeavors to find the missing SOLDIER.
• Black Cloak: They wear hooded black robes that obscure their faces.
• Death of Personality: Whatever personalities they had before are reduced to barely functioning instinctual puppets. The subtitles even get on it the robed ones that used to be Broden and Roche are referred to as Robed Man rather than their old names after they turn.
• Empty Shell: Although they are technically alive, whatever individual personality they use to have is long gone. All that is left is barely functioning humans who act more like zombies than people.
• Implacable Man: Because they are compulsively and irresistibly drawn to Sephiroth and Jenova, they have no regard for their own well-being and continue shambling on no matter what's in their way. While some are killed by monsters, none of them seem to suffer from exhaustion, exposure to the elements, or hunger, and they're implicitly able to navigate the same treacherous terrain as Cloud and his allies without any trouble. Most if not all of them still have the physical abilities of a SOLDIER, simply without the mind to actually use it anymore.
• In the Hood: Their faces are shrouded in darkness underneath.
• It Can Think: Subtle but there are times when they show situational awareness beyond what Sephiroth guides them to do. When they are attacked on the ship, one outright tries to run away from one of the fiends who merges with him. At certain points in the game, the subtly react to events going on around them. Marco was even able to rent a room in an inn seemingly without Sephiroth's influence. They also seem able to navigate dangerous environments unaided.
• Madness Mantra: They mumble "Reunion..." under their breaths, signifying that they're not altogether there mentally.
• Meat Puppet: Sephiroth can control them at will, causing them to take on his appearance — at least to Cloud's eyes.
• Morality Pet: To Barret of all people. He defends them from monsters, and people chasing them off, and even tries to help injured ones in the mines. He outright says in Nibelheim they are lucky they have him looking out for them and will fight back if Shinra tries anything on them. This is because he views them as victims of Shinra's experiments, as Hojo's mako experiments left them to degrade over time until their minds were gone.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Downplayed but still present. Alone, they do not really harm anything, Barret even expresses sympathy for them and tries to defend them from people trying to chase them off and save them when some get injured in places like the mines. That being said, Sephiroth can still process them to fight or harm others at any time, plus they can easily merge with monsters as seen on the ship. Its also worth noting that most if not all of them were formerly members of SOLDIER, meaning they could each still possess abilities similar to Cloud and Zach in a fight, if only they had the mind to use them.
• Remote Body: Act as this to Sephiroth. When Sephiroth wants to interact with someone, he take control of one of his clones who will temporarily go through a Transformation of the Possessed.
• Transformation of the Possessed: When Sephiroth is controlling them, they can assume his appearance.
• The Undead: As revealed in Rebirth, they are shown to be this - as seen where they still move and mumble despite the captain of Shinra-8 scoring a headshot on them, and Roche (after his Mako infusion) immediately gets raised as one of the robed one's after he succumbs to his wounds.
• We Have Reserves: No matter how many of them die throughout the journey in Rebirth, there always seem to be more wherever the party goes next.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The party gradually begin finding it uncomfortable how others treat the Clones as an annoyance at best or a monster worthy of execution at worst, when by all accounts these were once ordinary people whose condition is no fault of their own. Barret in particular comes to see everyone's treatment of the Clones as abominable after witnessing the events on the cruise ship and in Costa Del Sol.
• You Are Number 6: They each have numbers tattooed on their shoulders, with only Tifa and Cloud's neighbor at Marle's apartment, Clone #49, having a name of his own — Marco. A few more are given names in Rebirth, as the party is given a chance to interact with some characters who are degrading but haven't yet succumbed to Jenova's control on their first meeting.

Marco

Voiced By: Unknown

A sickly man with a number tattoo that lives next door to Cloud and has been cared for by Tifa.

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• Canon Foreigner: Doesn't appear in the original Final Fantasy VII.
• Chekhov's Gunman: At first, he just appears to be an early appearance of Sephiroth's clones, but ends up freeing Jenova, killing President Shinra and Barret (the latter gets better), and turns into a Jenova monster that serves as the second to last boss of Chapter 17.
• Composite Character: He takes over Jenova's role of being Sephiroth's main Remote Body for most of Remake. As a result, Marco is technically the "Sephiroth" who invades the Shinra building and kills President Shinra.
• Demonic Possession: Spends most of the late stages of Remake being Sephiroth's main vessel.
• The Dragon: He could be considered this to Sephiroth for most of Remake due to being Sephiroth's main host until Sephiroth is able to retrieve Jenova's body. Somewhat downplayed by the fact that Marco is just one of many vessels for Sephiroth to chose from when he want to interact with the physical world. Once Marco dies, Sephiroth just replaces him with a new clone.
• Dramatic Unmask: In a manner of speaking. While under Sephiroth's Demonic Possession, Marco takes on Sephiroth's appearance. After the party was able to defeat "Sephiroth" after he turned into Jenova Dreamweaver, the illusion disappears and the party discovers that the being that they were fight this whole time is Tifa's sickly neighbor.
• Goroawase Number: Marco's number is 49, a wordplay on "shi ku": Death and Suffering.
• Jump Scare: Appears as Sephiroth when Cloud opens the door and tries to strangle him to death.
• Only One Name: He's only given a first name, and his surname is never given.
• Walking Spoiler: It hard to talk about Marco without revealing that he is Sephiroth main host for most of Remake.

Sephiroth Clone #6

A former inn keeper who is tasked by Sephiroth to collect the Protorelics in the Nibel Region. This Sephiroth Clone is actually Broden who succumbed to cellular degradation and is possessed by the Jenova cells in his body after leaving Kalm.

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See his entry on this page.

Sephiroth Clone SC4

A former SOLDIER who agreed to be a test subject for Hojo to receive more power in preparation for his Last Dance with his rival. After succumbing to cellular degradation and becoming a Sephiroth Clone, Sephiroth arranged for him to help guide Cloud to the Black Materia. This Sephiroth Clone is none other than Roche.

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See his entry on this page.

The Puppet

An unmarked clone has been ordered by Sephiroth to retrieve the Black Materia for him. Unlike his "siblings," this clone has been able to retain his individual identity but still can be influenced by Sephiroth. He becomes relentless in his pursuit for the Black Materia, and antagonizes the party more and more as they get closer to his desired prize. The actual identity of this Sephiroth Clone is none other than Cloud Strife.

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See their entry on this page.

The Emissary

A unique Sephiroth Clone whose purpose is to escalate the conflict between Shinra and Wutai in hopes of reigniting a war between the two factions. The identity of this Sephiroth Clone is Glenn Lodbrok, or at least a convincing imitation.

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See their entry on this page.

Corneo Family

Don Corneo

Voiced By: Fred Tatasciore (English), Yohei Tadano (Japanese)^{Foreign VAs} Patrice Melennec (French), Frank Felicetti (German)

A lecherous mobster who rules the Sector 6 slums from his Wutai-themed mansion in Wall Market.

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• 0% Approval Rating: You'll be hard-pressed to find anyone in Wall Market who talks/thinks about Don Corneo favorably and even many of his closer associates like the Trio and Leslie are quick to turn on him to assist Cloud's party when given the opportunity.
• Adaptational Badass: A very minor one. When Leslie holds him at gunpoint, he actually manages to pull off an impressive disarm and turn the tables on him. Of course, he still completely crumples when Cloud and company intervene in the nick of time. It's still more fighting prowess than he ever showed in the original. Late in Rebirth, he actually does enter the battlefield himself, but only atop the powerful monster Abzu. Still, it's more bravery than seen from him in the original. Also, when trying to steal Kid-G's tresure, he brings a pistol, showing he has knowledge of firearms.
• Adipose Rex: He's the don of the Sector 6 slums and is a lecherous fat guy.
• Always a Bigger Fish: For all the fear and clout he carries in Wall Market, all the power he wields as the Don of all the Slums, even he is forced to turn tail and run out of Midgar out of fear of pissing off Shinra.
• Ambiguously Bi: Maybe. Though he's clearly attracted to women he gravitates towards Cloud's masculine-sounding voice and identifies him appealingly as "big-boned", and he doesn't seem that put out when he discovers Cloud is male.
• Arc Villain: He serves as this for a couple chapters throughout the remake games.
  • In "Chapter 9: The Town That Never Sleeps" of Remake, as Cloud and Aerith navigate through the Corneo-controlled Wall Market in order to infiltrate his mansion to protect Tifa, and find out what the don knows about Shinra's latest scheme.
  • He later comes back in Remake to serve as the antagonist of "Chapter 14: In Search of Hope" as Cloud, Tifa, and Barret returns to Wall Market to track down Corneo to see if the crime lord has something the party can use to help them reach the Shinra building.
  • In Rebirth, he returns to serve as the primary villain of "Chapter 12: A Golden Key" as the party must stop from him rebuilding his criminal empire by taking over the Gold Saucer in order to receive the keystone for the Temple of the Ancients from Dio. Although, he does get upstaged by Rufus and the Turks when they enter the tournament after Corneo has been dealt with.
• Aroused by Their Voice: Despite the fact that Cloud doesn’t even try to act like a woman (or maybe because of that), Corneo nonetheless acts turned on by his voice.
• Ascended Extra: Unlike the original game where his relevance to the overall plot ends after Cloud infiltrates his mansion to get some info and his subsequent appearance is limited to the optional sidequest in Wutai, he reappears as a minor story antagonist during the Gold Saucer segment in Rebirth.
• Assist Character: In Rebirth he serves as one for Abzu, riding on his pet's back to feed him performance-enhancing potions and douse Abzu any time he gets set on fire, eliminating one of Abzu's former Kryptonite Factors.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Corneo looks and acts goofy for a crime lord, but he is also a literal serial killer and rapist that numerous characters have serious vendettas against, and always manages to be slightly more in control of any given situation than he first appears to be. Leslie actually puts it best when Cloud implies that he may just storm Corneo's mansion through the front door:
  Leslie: Wouldn't try it if I were you. Trust me, you don't wanna screw with the don. If you even think about causing trouble, he'll make sure someone pays for it. And that "someone" might wind up being the girl you're trying so hard to break out. Or it could wind up being someone you've never even met before. Get it? You're in the don's world now.
• The Bluebeard: The women he chooses are refered to as his "today's bride" and he'll only keep them around if they satisfy him enough. Once he's done with them, he'll then feed them to his pet monster.
• Butt-Monkey: Just like Palmer, if something bad can happen to Corneo, it will happen. So far he has lost his status as the major crime lord in Sector 6 and is forced to flee from Midgar, his plan to take over Dio's coliseum in Gold Saucer is thwarted, and Kid G kicks his ass when he attempts to rob the protorelic from Kid G.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He hangs a lampshade on the Evil Gloating trope while trying to get Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa to stand on the trap door in the floor of his room, outright calling himself a villain.
• Dirty Old Man: While his age is never stated, Corneo is certainly no spring chicken, yet he seems to favour younger women. He also doesn't like taking no for an answer, and seems unconcerned over whether or not his brides are willing participants.
• The Don: Don Corneo is a lecherous crime lord in Sector 6's slums, ostensibly rejecting even Shinra's authority according to the game's Twitter page, and is established in the Theme Song Trailer as taking a new woman as his "bride" each night before feeding them to his pet monster Abzu when he's done having his way with them.
• Fat Bastard: He's got a noticeable gut and is one mean bastard, being a lecherous, sadistic crime lord.
• Faux Affably Evil: Don't be fooled by that jolly, goofy persona of his. His silly, outlandish mannerisms and fun-loving disposition only serve to highlight how maniacally debauched he is. He enslaves women, then feeds them to his monstrous pet as soon as he's tired of their company. He is also perfectly fine with mass murder if it means securing more power for himself, hence his deal with Shinra to help in Sector 7's destruction.
• Gladiator Games: He hosts no-holds-barred gladiator matches at the Corneo Colosseum, an arena located under Wall Market, which Cloud and Aerith have to compete in.
• Gonk: He's rather hideous, with tacky clothes and a stupid hairstyle that do him no favors on top of his unfortunate looks.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: Sports a disconnected, side-swept undercut with a handlebar mustache and chinstrap beard.
• Groin Attack: Just like in the original, in Remake Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa threaten the don with this if he doesn't give them the information that they want. In Rebirth the rest of the party get in on it, with Barret threatening to fill them with lead and Red threatening to bite it off.
• Hate Sink: Don Corneo is a licentious mobster who forces himself onto women, feeds them to his pet monster when he grows bored of them, and is otherwise responsible for having people’s lives be ruined or possibly worse. All these things make it clear that there is nothing redeeming about Don Corneo.
• Hidden Depths: Rebirth shows he's a pretty good DJ.
• Human Traffickers: In Rebirth, Sam would reveal that Corneo has been rounding up people who are in debt to him, and selling them off by the truckload to Shinra to be used as Hojo's test subjects. Among the people Corneo sold off were Choco Will and Clara, the parents of Choco Billy and Chloe.
• Hypocrite: He refers to Cloud as a "Big boned girl" but he's the fattest guy in the room.
• Insult Backfire: The vulgar comments that Cloud makes at him only serve to get Corneo even more excited rather than being repulsed, with him only taking offense after Cloud kicks him away.
• Jiggle Physics: On his fat stomach, just to make him look even grosser.
• Just Between You and Me: He loves this and especially wants his victims to know that the villain only does this when they're sure they've won.
• Karma Houdini: Played with. In Remake, he is branded a wanted fugitive after crossing Shinra and is forced to flee town, likely losing much of his power base but he still ends up getting away relatively unharmed; he even manages to evade the protagonist. In Rebirth, despite being a wanted criminal, he was able to arrange a highly publicized tournament at the Golden Saucer with the possibly of taking over the amusement park if he wins. After being defeated there, he managed to run off on Abzu again. Ironically, the president of Shinra, the company after him, Rufus, actually shows up soon after to partake in the tournament; although luckily for Corneo, Shinra had bigger fish to fry at the moment.
• Kavorka Man: Don Corneo is an unattractive man, but somehow manages to net himself a new "bride" almost every evening. Once he's bored of them, however, he feeds them to his pet monster. Leslie's backstory and NPC dialogue indicate that many women who find their way into his bedchambers may actually just be down on their luck and tragically resort to becoming his brides in the hopes that a night with the Don will net them enough money to get them back on their feet.
• Meaningful Name: His name literally means "Lord Horny". It also puns on Don Corleone.
• Occidental Otaku: He's indicated to have an appreciation for Wutai culture, with his mansion being themed after a Japanese castle and one of his high-ranking employees being an oiran.
• Oh, Crap!: Aerith, Cloud, and Tifa threatening to castrate him unless he tells them why he was having his goons spy on Avalanche trumps his fear of retaliation from Heidegger.
• Perverted Sniffing: He does this to Aerith while checking her out as his prospective "bride".
• Pet the Dog: Subverted. He tells Leslie that he was planning to promote him and give him territory of his own if things went well. But now that he is on Shinra's bad side, he sees no reason to not try to blow Leslie's brains out on the spot.
• Psychopathic Man Child: Cloud's vulgar comments towards him causes him to get rather giggly, such as how at one point, Corneo flails his arms and legs about on the bed before deciding that he's waited long enough, and wants some sugar.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: He blatantly forces himself on top of women. Corneo also dumps off girls that didn't quite catch his full attention to his horny goons. Said goons are ecstatic with what they claim to be Corneo rewarding them.
• Smarter Than You Look: Even with his updated, more realistic character design, he's a ridiculous caricature of a man with a Psychopathic Manchild demeanour that makes it very hard to take him seriously. This is a mistake - he's a clever and ruthless opportunist who's always a little more in control of the situation than he seems to be, which is how he manages to repeatedly survive his run-ins with the heroes. Cloud even warns Yuffie not to underestimate him in Rebirth.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He flees Midgar after he spills the plans about the Sector 7 plate dropping to Avalanche, knowing that Shinra won't take well to him snitching.
• Stout Strength: Proves himself to be surprisingly strong when he disarms the much younger and more obviously combat-capable Leslie, crushing his wrist with a one-handed twist before bringing him to his knees with a punch to the gut.
• Tattoo as Character Type: He has a tattoo of a heart on his head and is infamous for being a lecherous womanizer.
• The Unfought: Played straight in Remake, where he never directly fights the protagonists. When cornered he distracts them with Abzu and runs off. Zigzagged in Rebirth where he actually does enter the battlefield personally to face the protagonists in the Musclehead Arena late in the game during the tournament, but he's riding on top of Abzu and never personally fights directly.
• Too Kinky to Torture: Cloud trash-talking and insulting him only serves as a turn-on, though he's livid when Cloud dares to physically strike him.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: His final appearance in Part 1 has the heroes corner him, only for him to successfully escape when Abzu attacks them. His appearance in Rebirth follows suit, with him fleeing on Abzu after getting a beating from the party, and fleeing from the party again after Kid G whoops them.

Scotch and Kotch

Scotch Voiced By: Greg Chun (English), Kenji Kitamura (Japanese)^{Foreign VAs} Serge Thiriet (French), Peter Dischkow (German)
Kotch Voiced By: Chris Jai Alex (English), Subaru Kimura (Japanese)^{Foreign VAs} Pierre Alam (French), Michael-Che Koch (German)

A pair of thugs who work as Don Corneo's lieutenants, as well as announcers at the Corneo Colosseum.

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• Co-Dragons: The two serve as Don Corneo's lieutenants and seem to share equal authority.
• Combat Commentator: Mostly in the Hell House boss battle and the fights at Gold Saucer's Musclehead Colosseum.
• Delinquent Hair: Playing up his urban delinquent look, Kotch sports a blond mohawk.
• The Host: They act as the Masters of Ceremony at Corneo Colosseum, announcing the combatants and hyping up the crowd. They hijack this role from Dio in Rebirth when they and Corneo attempt to seize the Musclehead Colosseum for themselves.
• Large-Ham Announcer: As the MCs of the Colosseum, they snark at participants, hype them up, and gleefully participate in Lampshade Hanging. The change of venue in Rebirth does not diminish this in the slightest.
• Locked Up and Left Behind: Following a raid on Corneo's mansion by Shinra's troops, Kotch ends up restrained on a table in Corneo's torture chamber. Cloud and company can free him if they so wish.
• Noble Male, Roguish Male: Scotch is the more stylish and suave of the two whereas Kotch is more straightforward and brash.
• Oh, Crap!: Scotch recognizes Aerith as one of the Corneo Colosseum's new champions and has a brief moment of panic before she kicks him in the crotch and Tifa boots him in the face.
• Shipper on Deck: When Cloud and Aerith sign up to the Corneo Colosseum, Scotch and Kotch assume they're romantically involved and play them up as a couple united by unquenchable bloodlust while MCing.
• Slimeball: Scotch has a more suave style than Kotch, but proves to be every bit as sleazy as his fellow MC and Don Corneo's other henchmen when given the opportunity to "entertain" Aerith and Tifa.

Abzu

Don Corneo's pet monster, which he feeds the women chosen to be his "bride" each night.

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• Adaptation Name Change: His name was transliterated as "Aps" in the original game.
• Ascended Extra: The monster was just an one off boss in the original game, but in the remakes it is a Recurring Boss throughout the games.
• Fed to the Beast: Don Corneo keeps it as a pet, and feeds it the women he takes as his "brides" once he's done having his way with them. Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa end up being dropped into its sewer-based lair, forcing them to fight it.
• Heroic Build: Despite its otherwise monstrous features, its actually possesses one of these, and will even strike a pose or two during battle to show it off.
• It Can Think: Its Assess materia dossier notes that while it may look like a grotesquely ugly beast, it's deceptively intelligent. It's smart enough to play dead when defeated, even using the defeat in the Colosseum as a pretense to save his master.
• Monster Is a Mommy: Despite being referred to with male pronouns, it has a plethora of progeny prowling the sewers. One shoat happens to be smarter than the rest, and has a nasty sense of humor.
• Not Quite Dead: Is seemingly killed by the party during the second fight in Remake - Rebirth reveals that he is alive and well (he sports the same broken horns like before), and fights the party inside the Musclehead Colosseum with Don Corneo as his rider.
• Recurring Boss: In contrast to its sole boss fight in the original game, Abzu here is fought multiple times. At first he is fought during the sewers after the events in Don Corneo's mansion, later he is fought while covering Don Corneo's escape while the party finds a way up the plate. In Rebirth he is the last challenger of Corneo's forces alongside his master riding him as support during the Gold Saucer battles and aides in his escape after the battle.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Abzu is named after the primordial sea that exists below the Underworld in Sumerian mythology.
• Scars Are Forever: Any crippling damage you've done on Abzu (either one of its horns) stays that way after it flees and then fight again for a rematch later. In Rebirth both horns are broken and the tail gone.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In the original game, Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa kill him. In Remake, it flees after they defeat it, crashing through a wall and providing the trio with an escape route. It returns alongside its offspring in Chapter 14 to save Don Corneo from Leslie and Avalanche, and is defeated again by the party. In Rebirth, Abzu shows up again alongside Don Corneo, and despite getting another beating, has enough strength to make an exit afterwards.

Gi Tribe

In General

A tribe of warriors who terrorized Cosmo Canyon decades in the past.

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• Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear whether any living members of the Gi Tribe remained when they attacked Cosmo Canyon, as Gi Nattak's comments imply they all died a very long time ago.
• Anti-Villain: Gi Nattak and Bugenhagen frame the Gi Tribe as such, having settled in the region of Cosmo Canyon after arriving on the Planet following the destruction of their homeworld, only to find they were Barred from the Afterlife after death. Consumed by bitter rage and spite, they stole a sacred materia from the Cetra and corrupted it into the Black Materia to destroy the Planet itself, but were driven deep underground by a war with the Cetra and encroachment into their lands by the ancestors of those who presently live in Cosmo Canyon. Now, only their vengeful spirits remain, lashing out at the descendants of their oppressors and praying that the Black Materia will be returned to them so that they can have peace through oblivion. While the party can't give them the Black Materia back for obvious reasons, Red decides that he will find another way to release them from their purgatory.
• Ascended Extra: In the original game, the tribe was merely background lore regarding Red XIII's father Seto, In Rebirth they are revealed to also have clashed with the Cetra, and are revealed as the creators of the Black Materia, whose origins were unstated in the original game.
• Barred from the Afterlife: It's revealed that the Gi Tribe were unable to enter the Lifestream after death due to being extraterrestrials. When the Cetra refused to intercede with the Planet on their behalf, the Gi Tribe declared war and stole a sacred materia, corrupting it with their nihilistic despair and hatred into the Black Materia.
• Non-Human Undead: They are revealed to be an ancient race of aliens who came to the Planet during the time of the Cetra, but were barred from entering the Lifestream after death due to not originating from the Planet. By the time the game's story takes place, only their vengeful spirits remain.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: The Gi are ghosts in every sense of the word, but are so removed from the spirits seen in the Train Graveyard that the party are unable to think of them the same way. Even when Barret thinks that they have seen ghosts by seeing the Gi, he has to take a second to wonder if they are the same thing.
• Put Them All Out of My Misery: As the Gi are trapped on the Planet but didn't originate from it, they're unable to enter the Lifestream and doomed to spend eternity as disembodied spirits. They created the Black Materia to call down Meteor and destroy the Planet entirely, allowing them to fully die even if it takes all other life with them.
• Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum: With the Gi Tribe being barred from the Lifestream due to being extraterrestrials, they created the Black Materia to destroy the planet out of nihilistic spite and hatred towards the Cetra.
• Vengeful Ghost: Being denied access to the Lifestream after death left them bitter and spiteful towards the other species of the Planet, such as the Cetra and Red XIII's species.
• Villainous Legacy: It is because they created the Black Materia that Sephiroth is able to become a threat to the Planet.
• Villain Respect: Even though they were the ones to petrify Seto, they still talk about him with a great deal of respect, as he does sympathize will their predicament with being Barred from the Afterlife.

Gi Nattak

Voiced By: Bruce Thomas (English), Takaya Hashi (Japanese)^{Foreign VAs} Antoine Tomé (French), Alexander Beck (German)

Click ^here to see his pacified form

The vengeful spirit of the leader of the Gi Tribe, who acts as the boss in Chapter 10 of Rebirth.

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• Affably Evil: Once his vengeful spirit is pacified enough to communicate, he politely invites the party into the hellish realm that the Gi Tribe carved out for themselves deep underground and asks that they retrieve the Black Materia so that he can use it to free his people from their suffering by granting them oblivion—glossing over that doing so would destroy the Planet and wipe out all other life in the process. Even when reminded that Aerith is a member of the hated Cetra, he simply remarks that she is a Cetra in bloodline only.
• Arc Villain: Acts as the main antagonist of the Cosmo Canyon section, Chapter 10: Watcher of the Vale, in Rebirth being the leader of the Gi.
• Ascended Extra: He was just a regular boss in the original game, but in Rebirth he is made into his own character, and one who is vital to the overall story.
• Bishōnen Line: When fought as a boss he's a giant skeletal warrior missing the lower half of his body, but when he later appears before the party to accompany them to the Village of the Gi Tribe he appears as he presumably did in-life.
• Climax Boss: The second Climax boss of Rebirth, defeating him opens a great deal of lore behind the Cetra and the Gi, as well as expounding upon the origins of the Black Materia that becomes the focal point of the last third of the game.
• Dem Bones: When fought as a boss, he manifests as a hideously monstrous floating skeleton.
• Glowing Eyelights of Undeath: When fought as a boss, he has glowing red lights for pupils in otherwise empty voids.
• Mr. Exposition: He informs the party of the history of the Gi and their fued with the Cetra, as well as the existence of the Black Materia.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: When fought as a boss, he's clad in armor made of monster bones—including a fanged skull for a helmet.
• Time-Limit Boss: When he enters the final phase of his fight, he casts Doom on Red and Barret. A timer appears above both their heads and they have until it reaches zero to finish Gi Nattak off.
• Vengeful Ghost: Like the rest of the Gi Tribe, centuries of being denied acceptance into the afterlife has filled him with spite and rage, twisting him into a nihilist who only desires oblivion.
• Written by the Winners: He certainly believes so in regards to the Cetra. While the Cetra are regarded as ancient saviors by most of the inhabitants of the Planet, Gi Nattak remembers his old enemies as intolerant people who refused to help his tribe.

Other Antagonists

Whispers / Arbiters of Fate

Mysterious shadowy entities first seen haunting Aerith, they are new to the remake trilogy and play a prominent role throughout the story.

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Tropes pertaining to the Arbiters of Fate in general:

• Ambiguously Evil: The heroes can't really make heads or tails of them, but know they are rather antagonistic at times.
• Black Cloak: They're noted to resemble cloaked and hooded wraiths, accenting their sinister appearance.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: They're ready to save those that aren't supposed to die according to fate, and antagonize those that are. The Arbiters cause Jessie's grenade to blow up in her face and then block Cloud and Tifa from reaching her until it's too late, and prevent Wedge from fleeing the collapsing Sector 7 plate when he tries to rescue his cat, though he is revealed to have survived. Conversely, one of the Arbiters resurrects Barret after Sephiroth fatally wounds him, and they even aid Aerith and Cloud during their escape from the Sector 5 Church while stopping the latter from killing Reno.
• Brought Down to Normal: They end up doing this to Aerith and Red XIII in Shinra Tower by stripping away their memories of the future before they can spill anything to the party. Unfortunately for them, they didn't get to do the same for Marlene as shown in Rebirth.
• Canon Foreigner: The Arbiters of Fate were completely absent from the original Final Fantasy VII.
• Foreshadowing: Despite the cast believing they're enemies, their first combat encounter has these things mostly being non-aggressive and doing pitiful damage until a more powerful spectre emerges, and their binding grab attacks are literally just encircling a character and doing surprisingly minuscule damage. That's because they aren't trying to kill your party members, but "detain them" so they follow destiny's course more; it's why they leave immediately after injuring Jessie, as they ensured at that point that Barret will now hire Cloud for the Sector 5 bombing mission compared to the cast holding off previously.
• Godzilla Threshold: The Compilation is rife with various Weapons for world-class threats, but these beings literally exist by the Planet's will because Sephiroth is outright trying to change history itself. And considering some of the chaos they cause just by running amok in certain scenes, even if only malevolent to those defying fate, they're distinctly more dangerous than the average measure thanks to being able to manipulate things on a human scale instead of just destroying everything.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Considering the ambiguity of their intentions and how they react to the various events and time divergences, the cast assume them to be a greater problem than whatever the heck Sephiroth is doing in the first part's story. Turns out that by the standards of Sephiroth's plans, one could make a case for them constituting a Big Good of sorts, albeit one that's very antagonistic towards the Avalanche members that were fated to die, forcing Cloud and friends into a direct confrontation with them. Their defeat at the end of part one means that Cloud may have a chance to make things much less bleak in this timeline, but also that Sephiroth could make things much more bleak.
• Invisible to Normals: Aerith is initially the only person who can see them, by virtue of being a Cetra. Cloud next becomes able to see them as well when they touch him, and eventually everyone with an important role to play in the world becomes able to see them: as of the finale of Rebirth, this short list (alongside Cloud and Aerith) is Barret, Tifa, Red XIII, Yuffie, Cait Sith, Vincent, Sephiroth, Rufus, Scarlet, Zack, Cissnei, and Bugenhagen.
• Irony: Their purpose is to make sure the plot of the original game happens, but they're essentially Canon Foreigners who never existed in the original game.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: They're essentially an embodiment of forces attempting to preserve a purist's idea of what a Final Fantasy VII remake should be, opposing any changes to the events of the original timeline.
• Life Drain: Aerith remarks that every time they touch her she feels she's losing "a part of herself." Rebirth reveals that they took most of her memories of the future.
• Living Shadow: The Arbiters of Fate are spectral entities seemingly made of smoke and shadows, and are invisible to most people except for those intimately involved with the Planet's destiny.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right: While they ultimately want to uphold the plot fated to happen by denying deviations from the story, it means denying any possible changes; whatever happens to be more in favor of the heroes' side is just as subject to their interference as any advantages the villains might get, just because it didn't happen in the original story. That's why they're willing to harm and even kill characters destined to die.
• Meanwhile, in the Future…: The destruction of the Whisper Harbinger in the present appears to have weakened the Arbiters of Fate to the point of nullifying some of the things they had a hand in. Most significantly, this creates a universe where Zack and Biggs each survive their brush with death.
• Necromancer: They can bring people back from the dead. In the climax of the storming of the Shinra HQ, Barret is explicitly killed by Sephiroth, but because this would cause things to diverge majorly from the original game's plot, one of the Arbiters immediately resurrects him.
• Oxymoronic Being: Their reason for their existence and actions essentially boils down to making sure the events of the original Final Fantasy VII happened as they did. At the same time, they were never originally part of said plot themselves, yet continue to exist and act on anyway.
• Poor Communication Kills: Almost everything that goes wrong for the Arbiters would be resolved if they simply spoke to the party and explained their motivations. It's unclear whether they're unable, or simply refuse to. Either way, the result is that the party takes their heavy-handed approach to intervening to mean that they're villains, and interprets everything else that they do through that lens.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Their goal is to ensure the plot of the original Final Fantasy VII goes off without any changes to its eventual conclusion of saving the planet. That means they'll interfere with any points that risk deviating from "destiny", such as making sure Cloud and Aerith escape Reno's forces in the church or reviving Barret after Sephiroth kills him at Shinra Tower.
• Spanner in the Works: They try to deal with these as they crop up, and frequently act as this themselves. For example, Cloud not immediately accepting the next reactor gig causes them to create a stir in the Sector 7 slums just so that Jessie gets hurt in the collateral, forcing him get involved anyway. They also step in to prevent Cloud from killing Reno in a battle that didn't happen originally, repeatedly try to kill Wedge when he survives the Sector Seven plate collapse, make damn sure to whisk Hojo away before he reveals the full truth of Cloud never having been in SOLDIER to begin with, and resurrect Barret when he is killed by Sephiroth, because this could have a major butterfly effect on the rest of the game's plot.
• Take That, Audience!: The Arbiters basically personify Final Fantasy VII purists who wanted a remake that has the exact same plot as the original and engineer events throughout the game so it can be achieved. Yet because of this, they are seen mostly as villains by the heroes, who don't exactly like being made to do what they don't know. Aerith, in particular, who is implied to have full knowledge of the original game's story, is horrified to learn that she's basically Doomed by Canon to advance the story and convinces the others to defy them, even though it means that Sephiroth's defeat is not inevitable.
• Time Police: The Arbiters of Fate seek to enforce that You Can't Fight Fate and intervene to both help and hinder the heroes in order to make sure that the events of Final Fantasy VII Remake occur more-or-less as they did in the original Final Fantasy VII.
• Walking Spoiler: While showcased in the trailers and advertising openly, what the Arbiters of Fate are as well as their goals are a major underlying mystery to part one of the story, as they revolve around a major crux of the changes from the original game. Their influence and each major appearance they have is consequently meant to be a big surprise.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: While the original events of Final Fantasy VII had a good number of tragic deaths and sacrifices, those events are at least guaranteed to save the Planet, although certain sacrifices that provided that guarantee disappear whenever the story goes slightly Off the Rails. Fortunately, Sephiroth's Adaptational Early Appearance counts as derailing, so the Arbiters render him less dangerous than he should be. Less fortunately, people who get Spared by the Adaptation also count as derailing, which means the Arbiters are constantly trying to kill those survivors off as well as protect the villains who are supposed to be doing the killing.
• You Can't Fight Fate: They're the ones that actively enforce this, making characters stick to how things went in the original game and acting to keep them in line if they deviate. However, it turns out you literally can fight fate, and doing so can change history.

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Tropes pertaining to the Black Whispers specifically:

• Ambiguous Situation: At the Forgotten Capital, the Black and White Whispers engage in a rare moment of cooperation and form a barrier to keep the party away from Aerith, only for several Black Whispers to then turn against their comrades and open a hole in the barrier. It's unclear whether this was part of Sephiroth's scheme, or Cloud briefly managing to seize control of the Whispers himself.
• The Corruption: Black Whispers are the result of Sephiroth influencing a portion of Arbiters to obey his commands. As such, they aid him in bringing about the unification of multiple timelines by converting their respective Lifestreams into destructive energy as shown when the party reaches the Forgotten Capital.
• De-power: It's implied that the Whispers Sephiroth had taken control of near the end of Remake were responsible for depowering Aerith's White Materia, rendering her a harmless obstacle in Sephiroth's eyes. When Cloud returns to the original timeline with a fully-charged one, the Black Whispers attempt to depower it once more only to be thwarted this time.
• Enemy Mine: While normally opposed to the White Whispers, both work to stop the party from reaching Aerith in the Forgotten Capital.
• Evil Counterpart: The Black Whispers are considered this to the original Arbiters and White Whispers as they work to undermine the Planet's fate according to Sephiroth's whims.
• Familiar: They are essentially this for Sephiroth in Rebirth and even assist him during the final battle.
• Foil: The Black Whispers serve as this for both the original Arbiters and their white-colored counterparts, being loyal to Sephiroth and helping him reunite the different timelines at the Planet's expense. They also do not actively get in the party's way until near the end of Rebirth where Cloud gets ahold of both the fake Black Materia and the powered White Materia.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: Compared to the dark gray hues of the Arbiters, these Whispers are completely black and have an orb that emits bright purple hues.
• Magic Missile Storm: In the final battle of Rebirth, the Black Whispers are incorporated by Sephiroth as part of his moveset with one particular attack rapidly firing tons of them at the player.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right: This is their overall goal as thralls of Sephiroth.
• People Puppets: At the water altar, they coerce Cloud to kill Aerith with his own weapon. It takes a lot of Heroic Willpower on his part to not only defy their manipulations, but also parry Sephiroth's blade as he comes down to murder Aerith.
• Reality Warper: These particular Whispers can rend reality, turn themselves into solid matter, and entrap others into different dimensions. They manage to pull this off on Zack twice with the second attempt sending him to a world that's about to be destroyed by Meteor.
• Spanner in the Works: Throughout the story, the Black Whispers mainly serve as this for the Planet. From redirecting the Lifestream's flow in Cosmo Canyon to attacking the newly-awakened Weapons at Gongaga, it's clear that they're meant to aid Sephiroth in handling external factors that could potentially ruin his ambitions. They only fulfill this trope against the party near the end of the game.

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Tropes pertaining to the White Whispers specifically:

• De-power: The magic circles created by these Whispers can debuff the party's stats, making them more of a threat than their dark-colored counterparts.
• Elemental Powers: They are able to use high-tier elemental spells to damage opponents.
• Enemy Mine: The White Whispers are no friends of their black counterparts, but they do work in tandem to stop the party from reaching Aerith within the Forgotten Capital albeit with different agendas in mind.
• Familiar: They are essentially this for Aerith in Rebirth once she gets ahold of the empowered White Materia.
• Foil: While the White Whispers are aligned with the Planet just like their predecessors, they do not actively harass anyone who slightly deviates from destiny's intended path. Instead, their main goals are to deal with the threat posed by Sephiroth as well as ensure that Aerith successfully prays for Holy. They also actively help the party rather than help only when it goes against fates wishes and clash with the Black Whispers throughout the story.
• Good Counterpart: The White Whispers are basically this for their dark-hued counterparts especially near the end of Rebirth once Aerith takes full command over them.
• Good Wears White: These Whispers are decked in white and fight on behalf of the Planet as well as the party at the end of Rebirth.
• Instant Runes: They are able to conjure magic circles resembling those used by Aerith, further demonstrating their ties to her and the Cetra.
• Light Is Not Good: Zig-zagged. While the White Whispers are mostly benign, they become hostile towards the party the moment they decide to defy fate and rescue Aerith at the altar.
• Mana Drain: Can do this with their Etheric Drain ability.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: They inherit the Arbiters' goal to correct the Planet's intended destiny, albeit in less intrusive ways. The only time they interfere with the heroes is when Aerith is about to head to the Forgotten Capital and pray for Holy as this event is crucial to ensuring that the Planet has a fighting chance against Meteor.
• Spanner in the Works: The White Whispers are this for Sephiroth and his Black Whispers especially near the end of Rebirth. To sum up their actions, they fight alongside the Weapons within the Lifestream, help Tifa see the battle for the Lifestream at Gongaga, her importance in keeping Cloud's mind well and safely return her after the fact, ensure that Cloud delivers the fully-charged White Materia to Aerith, fully heal the party after their battle with Jenova Lifeclinger, lead the displaced Zack to Cloud's location, collectively impede Sephiroth Reborn's movements in one of the solo fights against him, and summon a version of Aerith to join the final battle.
• Trickster Mentor: In a way, the White Whispers are this for Tifa as they command one of the Weapons to swallow her whole so she can witness their battle against Sephiroth within the Lifestream and make her understand that Cloud is being influenced by Sephiroth.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The final chapter of Rebirth has the White Whispers stall the party from making their way inside the Forgotten Capital to keep them from interfering with Aerith's prayer.
• World-Healing Wave: The White Whispers literally invoke this trope on the party after Jenova Lifeclinger is destroyed. They do it again after Aerith helps Cloud defeat Sephiroth at the Edge of Creation, restoring the distortions and separating the timelines once more.

Beck's Badasses

Beck Voiced By: Andrew Kishino (English), Wataru Takagi (Japanese)^{Foreign VAs} Pierre-Alain De Garrigue (French), Steffen Wilhelm (German)
Burke Voiced By: Sean Rohani (English), Anri Katsu (Japanese)^{Foreign VAs} Antoine Schoumsky (French), Stefan Senf (German)
Butch Voiced By: Ben Pronsky (English), Chikahiro Kobayashi (Japanese)^{Foreign VAs} Stéphane Roux (French), Maximilian Sordon (German)

From left to right: Burke, Beck, Burt and Butch

A gang of inept thugs — Beck, Burke, Butch, and later Burt — who prowl the Sector 6 slums.

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• Arc Villain: In Rebirth they're the antagonists of the Protorelic quest in the Grasslands, with the party having to fight and track them down several times all over the map.
• Ascended Extra: They appear to be based off the Vice enemies from the original game that were randomly encountered in the Sector 5 slums. Now they're minor antagonists encountered by the party numerous times.
• Batter Up!: Burke's weapon-of-choice is a nail-studded bat.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Despite Beck, Burke, and Butch mostly being comic relief, they're still a dangerous threat. Special mention goes to Butch who, though definitely the least intelligent of the three core members, is also the strongest, having a fair bit more HP than his partners in crime.
• Bringing in the Expert: Beck's Badasses does this quite a bit. In the Corneo Cup tournament, they reinforce themselves with 5 of Corneo's Lackeys — these guys provide More Dakka and grenades to the trio's melee. After that, they hire the Grungy Bandit — a fighter from the Colosseum, who becomes a permanent member of the group unlike those previous others. In Rebirth the last fight with them has them using a modded Sweeper to help fight off the party.
• Bullying a Dragon: Their profiles note that they are terrible at sizing up potential targets, and they pick fights with Cloud numerous times across the story — initially mistaking him and Aerith for an easy mark. The final time they do so, they are terrified when they recognize Cloud.
• Criminal Craves Legitimacy: In Rebirth they want to go "legit" and start a new "corporation" like Shinra. By the end of their questline, the party takes pity on them and agrees to just buy the Protorelic they found — but only after they promise that they'll abandon their criminal ways, which they all agree to, with Beck now calling himself their "president".
  • That said, by the end of the final sidequest in the Grasslands near the end of the game, they go right into being outlaw bikers.
• Delusions of Eloquence: The quite possibly only reason why Beck is still the leader of his own criminal gang is that he's dumb enough to believe that he's way smarter than he actually is, yet smart enough to not completely butcher his pronunciations (even though he's using expressions that he clearly has no idea what they really mean), combined with the fact that all the other bandits are so dumb that they actually fall for his ruse.
• Dumb Muscle: The Grungy Bandit / Burt that Beck's gang recruits later on in the game is dumb even by their idiotic standards. In fact, he isn't even intelligent enough to speak. That said, he is by far the strongest member of Beck's Badasses, being tankier than all three of them put together and having highly damaging attacks to boot.
• Egocentric Team Naming: Beck is a cocky guy who named the gang "Beck's Badasses" after himself.
• Feigning Intelligence: Beck routinely uses big words in an attempt to sound smarter than he actually is, but falters whenever Butch asks him for clarification on what he means. Using the Assess Meteria on him reveals that "feigning knowledge of things" is Beck's "special ability."
• Gangbangers: They're a small street gang that lurks in seedier parts of Midgar.
• Goldfish Poop Gang: You know you're Goldfish Poop when the hero denies knowing who you are.
  Beck: Not so fast! You wanna come through here, you'll have to provide due compens- You again!?
  Burke: Oh shit!
  Barret: Friends of yours?
  Cloud: Nope.
  Beck: Stop lying! We go way back!
• The Highwayman: They mainly prowl the Collapsed Expressway of Sector 6, robbing people who try to pass through the area.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: They are so stupid and ineffective that Rebirth starts playing them for sympathy, with the party pitying them so much they agree to pay them for the Protorelic, even though they could just kill them.
• The Leader: Beck is the leader of the gang, by virtue of being the least stupid member. His description even states that his ability to feign intelligence is how he has been able to recruit the members of his gang.
• Malevolent Masked Men: They all wear black masks with white sigils on the front.
• Oh, Crap!: Their final appearance in Remake has them react in horror when they realize they've come across Cloud again. In Rebirth they similarly react with terror upon bumping into the party again.
• Named by the Adaptation: In Remake, the muscular Colosseum fighter they hire is only known as "Grungy Bandit". In Rebirth he's revealed to be named Burt, which conveniently fits with the naming convention of the other three.
• Nothing but Skin and Bones: Burke has a lanky, malnourished build with visible ribs, as a sign of his poverty due to being a terrible bandit.
• Not Worth Killing: Really, the only explanation as to how they keep surviving encounters with Cloud. Even after their final story-mandated appearance in Remake, they can be fought at any time by returning to the spot in the ruined highway that serves as their new base of operations. In Rebirth, Aerith will straight up pity them and insist Cloud give them a chance by just paying for the Protorelic that they took.
• Only One Name: All members only get a single name.
• The Paralyzer: The only notable move Beck, Burke, and Butch can do is lay electric mines on the floor, which will paralyze anyone who steps on them.
• Playing Possum: They play dead upon being defeated, and can be heard whispering conspicuously to each other upon being first defeated. They also react in pain if stepped on. Using the Assess Meteria on them reveals that "playing dead" is Burke and Butch's "special ability."
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: They're a bunch of incompetent idiots who really shouldn't keep picking fights with the people who keep wiping the floor with them, but seeing as they've got nothing better to do...
• Revenge Before Reason: Beck, Burke, and Butch challenge Cloud and Aerith in the Corneo Colosseum in order to seek "due recompense" for their humiliating defeat, bringing in members of Corneo's gang as an assist. They later seek a rematch with hired muscle from the Colosseum.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: In the "The Price of Thievery" sidequest, they try to impersonate the Guardian Angel of the Slums to steal donations for the Leaf House, but malaprop her name as "Garden Angle" — leading to their ruse being exposed when Cloud apprehends them.
• Rule of Three: They have three story-mandated appearances, each one resulting in them being further humiliated.
• Running Gag: Beck is the smartest of them — which isn't saying much — and a running gag is malapropism-prone Butch having to ask him for clarification whenever he uses big words.
• Serial Escalation: Only the first fight is against Beck, Butch, and Burke. When they pop up in the Corneo Cup, they quickly bring in five of Corneo's Lackeys to back them up; and every appearance after that has them backed up by their newest member Grungy Bandit / Burt, who's much stronger. However, the trope is also inverted, as they go from being introduced in cutscenes to being treated as if they were any other enemy on the map in their final appearances.
• Sinister Scimitar: Butch's weapon of choice is a black-bladed scimitar.
• Stout Strength: Grungy Bandit / Burt has a bulky, stout build and is a very strong fighter who uses wrestling moves.
• Terrible Trio: Though Beck's Badasses does contain more than three members, its leaders, Beck, Burke, and Butch, qualifies. As for the "terrible" part, well... they try. And, to be fair to them, they are a band of notorious criminals at least. It's just that they're going up against Cloud and company.
• Theme Naming: All their names start with B.
• The Unintelligible: Grungy Bandit / Burt is so stupid he doesn't know how to speak properly, with his few lines being completely unintelligible.
• Unique Enemy: Beck, Burke, and Butch serve as unique variants to the common "Bandit" enemies. Ironically, they're not all that much stronger than the enemies they're supposed to be unique versions of, and they're outright weaker than the blue-vested Bandits.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Burke and Butch both never wear a shirt, which is played for Fan Disservice since Butch is an obese Gonk while Burke is Nothing but Skin and Bones.
• Wrestler in All of Us: New hire Grungy Bandit / Burt is a fighter from the Colosseum whose weapon of choice is wrestling moves like Press Slam and Choke Slam. Unlike Rude, he's definitely willing to use them on Tifa.

Dyne

Voiced By: Dave B. Mitchell (English), Kenjiro Tsuda (Japanese)^{Foreign VAs} Cyrille Monge (French), Marc Oliver Schulze (German)

Look at me, Barret. You think I want Marlene to see what her father's become?

Marlene's birth father and Barret's best friend, who was likewise left with a gun for an arm following their shared tragedy.

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• Adaptational Badass: It's not explained how he does it, but he now has the ability to magnetize various scrap to his gun arm, allowing him to swing it like a giant club or else make metal "snakes" that either shoot lasers or try to stab Barret from below the earth.
• Adaptational Heroism: In the original game, Dyne was a nihilist who regularly went on random murderous rampages since he wanted to kill everyone and everything. In this continuity, Dyne at least has enough sanity to direct his Roaring Rampage of Revenge at Shinra, the true guilty party of his misfortunes. Dyne's shooting spree at the Gold Saucer is changed to a failed assassination attempt on Director Palmer's life. When Barret reunites with him, Dyne is genuinely happy to see his old friend again, and he acts pretty cordial to Barret, albeit while showing clear signs of insanity. Things only get violent when Dyne sees Barret with Cloud, an ex-SOLDIER, and comes to the conclusion that Barret is on Shinra's payroll. During his Last Stand, despite his burning resentment, he still tackles Barret away from enemy fire and uses his own body to shield him from the bullets; a Pet the Dog moment completely absent from the original. That said...
• Adaptational Jerkass: In the original game, Dyne's Famous Last Words to Barret before taking his own life were to never make Marlene cry; in Rebirth, Dyne not only accuses Barret of “taking” Marlene from him, but the last thing he tells Barret is to “carry that guilt… that weight”.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: In the original game, when Barret reveals that Marlene actually survived and that he's been taking care of her, Dyne decides to kill her to reunite her with her mother. Here, he just gets even more pissed off at Barret under the delusion that he's kidnapped her. Also, this version of Dyne was initially happy to see Barret again, whereas the original version has nothing but resentment for his old friend.
• Adaptational Wimp: In the original game, Dyne had become boss of Corel Prison with Coates answering to him. In Rebirth, Dyne not only lacks any authority but he gets captured by Coates’ counterpart Solemn Gus' goons offscreen, and is tied up when Barret finds him.
• Ailment-Induced Cruelty: Dyne shows several signs of brain damage from a massive head injury, and it's implied that at least some of his personality change is caused by this.
• Arc Villain: Of "Chapter 8: All That Glitters" in Rebirth as Dyne goes on a shooting spree at the Gold Saucer in an attempt to kill Palmer and Barret is blamed for Dyne's crimes. The party's search for the real culprit to clear Barret's name serves as the main focus of the chapter.
• Ax-Crazy: All the trauma he's suffered has done a number on his mental state, leaving him a broken shell of the man he once was, prone to outbursts of murderously violent rage.
• Beam Spam: Aside from bullets and bombs, many of his attacks involved firing various lasers. Repentance is a singular red beam that can blow away Barret's cover, while Phantom Ray is a series of four sweeping lasers unleashed by his Scrap Whips. Annihilation Beam, his most powerful attack, is a flurry of blue energy bullets.
• Berserk Button: Due to being an Adaptational Nice Guy, Dyne can be surprisingly friendly despite, or maybe because of his insane state. However, the moment he sees someone who is affiliated with Shinra, or at the very least someone whom Dyne thinks is with Shinra, then all bets are off. Dyne will stop at nothing to kill that person, and he doesn't care how many innocent people he has to go through to get to them.
• Cruel Mercy: He saves Barret because he wants him to live with the guilt of his actions.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Rather than jumping off a cliff to his death after getting his senses knocked back into him for a moment, he instead pulls a Suicide by Cop and succumbs to his wounds inflicted by a group of Shinra troops that had tracked him.
• The Dissenter Is Always Right: He was the only one in Corel who was against letting Shinra build a Mako reactor in their town while the others were blinded by the prospect of more money and energy. He is tragically proven right when the faulty reactor explodes and Shinra slaughters the town to cover it up.
• Duel Boss: Like in the original game Barret decides to fight Dyne in an one-on-one battle without any help from the rest of the party.
• Dying Declaration of Hate: Not quite hatred, but his last words are telling Barret to live with his guilt, and he spends almost every moment before, during, and after his boss battle expressing his utter contempt for Barret.
• Evil Counterpart: Dyne represents Barret if he completely gave into his hatred of Shinra and had nobody to care for. He has gone so far from sanity that even seeing Marlene's photo makes him worse when he realizes what he has become since he last seen her. Pointedly, he dies fighting Shinra forces telling Barret to live with the guilt, where Barret has learned that just fighting will only get him and those around him worse off and tries to ease everyone's burdens.
• Extra-ore-dinary: This version of Dyne displays the ability to somehow manipulate nearby sources of metal, first shown by his gun sprouting metallic tentacles that pull in the surrounding scrap iron to form a massive arm around it for his third phase. Later on in the fight, he forms several serpentine tendrils called Scrap Whips capable of firing lasers or attacking with their spiked heads. It's never clearly explained how he's able to do this, but Barret reacts in horror at the sight, asking what Dyne has done to himself since then.
• Fantastic Racism: Due to his hatred for Shinra, this extends to the SOLDIER group. Upon seeing Cloud, he immediately assumes Barret sold himself to Shinra, not knowing that Cloud is no longer a part of it. He then immediately opens fire to the group, ignoring Barret's pleas.
• Fatal Family Photo: The man was doomed the moment Barret showed him a picture of Marlene. This picture is subsequently placed on Dyne's grave after his passing.
• Fighting Your Friend: Barret reluctantly engages in combat with him more out of self-defence and in a hope of bringing Dyne back to his senses. Dyne is far happier to be fighting his old friend.
• Get It Over With: He requests Barret finish him after losing his fight, but Barret refuses and reverses this, placing himself at Dyne's mercy instead.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: In another mirror of Barret's injuries Dyne has two scars on the left half of his face. Unlike Barret's much smaller scars Dyne's stretch over the top of his head to his cheek representing his more twisted and broken personality.
• Go Out with a Smile: After succumbing to his wounds and cursing Barret to live with the guilt, Dyne then envisions himself returning home to his wife, happily embracing Eleanor while saying he missed her with his final breath.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Although it was driven by Suicide by Cop, Dyne uses the last of his strength to protect an unarmed Barret from a squadron of Shinra troopers. Although, with his dying breath he tell Barret to keep living with the guilt of what he has done.
• Mirror Boss: The first phase of the fight is very much like fighting a mirror image of Barret, a tanky, bullet firing fighter with close up blasts. The game even gives Barret a close-range blast to make the fight more of a mirror fight. His final phase however, gets significantly different, with him using weapons created from scrap metal in assorted variations that Barret does not have equivalent abilites.
• Shadow Archetype: Dyne represents what Barret could have become if he didn't have Marlene to keep him grounded, a man with nothing to live for except for vengeance against Shinra.
• Symbolic Mutilation: Scarlet shot off his and Barret's hands while the latter was trying to pull up the former, representing Shinra destroying their friendship. The mutilation is symbolically undone in his final moments, where Dyne's gun-arm drops off and he turns so that all remaining shots of him focus instead on his organic arm, representing his recovery of some semblance of his humanity.
• These Hands Have Killed: When Barret tells him Marlene is still alive, Dyne laments that his hands are saturated in blood and that he doesn't want his daughter to see the killer her father's become.
• Tragic Villain: Dyne is a mentally unstable and murderously violent man, but if not for Shinra's despicable actions against his village that led to him losing everything and everyone he cared for, he would've been content to simply live out the rest of his days as a humble coal miner and family man. Flashback sequences show him as a devoted father and husband, and it's clear how much Barret valued his friendship.
• We Used to Be Friends: Dyne has nothing but scorn and resentment for Barret now, blaming him for letting Shinra install a Mako reactor in their town and the tragedy that followed it. So much resentment, that when Barret tells him that he saved Marlene and has been taking care of her for years, Dyne just becomes even more pissed off, accusing Barret of stealing Marlene and with her the last reason he had to live, instead of thanking him for saving her.
• Weapon Tombstone: Returning to the battlefield shows that Dio did have his body buried, with his gun-arm serving as his tombstone. Symbolically, the gun-arm is pointed down, to show getting it only led to his death.
• Wormsign: During the last stretch of the fight, Dyne will use Hidden Barb to attack Barret from below with his Scrap Whips, and they create a visible trail of dust as they surge below the soil.

Ellie and Barry

A pair of criminals who kidnapped a Sephiroth Clone under Doctor Sheiran's care and try to ransom the robbed man.

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• Arc Villain: Of the "Of Robed Men and Ransoms" side quest in Rebirth.
• The Beastmaster: Barry can command a Dark Claw that he uses as the pair's Attack Animal.
• Karma Houdini: Ellie and Barry escape unharmed at the end of side quest after Cloud and the party were able to retrieve the hooded man they captured.
• Red Baron: They introduce themselves as "Ellie the Elusive" and "Barry the Brash."
• Stupid Crooks: Ellie and Barry are not as dumb as Beck's Badasses, but they are not too bright either. They ransomed the hooded man they captured from one million gil, which Doctor Sheiran clearly don't have the money for. The doctor hires Cloud and the party to retrieve his patient at a more affordable price as a result. When the party catches up to them, Ellie and Barry come up with a half-baked plan to pretend to be the people who were kidnapped, which the party sees through right away. After defeating their Dark Claw, it turns out they forgot to tie up the Sephiroth Clone, who just wanders away from his hiding spot.
• Tattooed Crook: They have matching face tattoos, a clear indication that Ellie and Barry are bad people.
• The Unfought: Technically, the party does not get to fight the duo directly, instead Barry orders a Dark Claw to fight in their place.

Bosses

Bosses Introduced in Remake

Scorpion Sentinel

The boss of Chapter 1. A scorpion-shaped mech sent to deal with Avalanche when they attack the Sector 1 mako reactor.

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• Adaptational Badass: The only reason it's remembered in the original is because of its laser tail that would attack the characters if the player struck it in its counter position, as a tutorial on teaching the player about the classic Active Time Battle mechanics. Here? The damn thing goes absolutely ballistic, tears up the entire reactor room while bombarding Cloud and Barret with bullets and missiles, has a barrier system, can discharge an EMP field, and just when you think it's finally about to kick the bucket, it has an auto-regenerative emergency mode that forces players to chop it down to size fast.
• Beware My Stinger Tail: It can fire powerful energy beams from the tip of its tail, forcing the player to hide behind debris. In Hard Mode it will fire it's tail laser attack a second time soon after the first, forcing the player to quickly run into another debris for cover.
• Cognizant Limbs: The Scorpion Sentinel's legs can be targeted separately from its main body.
• Deflector Shields: In the second phase of the fight, it will activate a barrier system, making it resistant to magic and physical attacks. Attacking it's exposed generator will turn it off.
• Dub Name Change: In the original game, this boss was known as the "Guard Scorpion." In the Japanese version of the remake, its name stays "Guard Scorpion," but in the English version its name is changed.
• EMP: The "EM-Field" attack has it releases an electric wave into the floor as an Area of Effect attack.
• Grapple Move: The "Death Grip" attack has it swiping its claw to grab a character, holding them in the air while charging it's "Stinger Salvo" attack at point-blank range. It will lose his grip on the character if dealt enough damage.
• In a Single Bound: It will jump high into the air when maneuvering around the arena.
• Macross Missile Massacre: The "Mark 99 Launchers" attack has it firing out a salvo of small missiles.
• Regenerating Health: It activates an auto-repair unit that regenerates it's health in the final phase, turning the fight into a DPS race.
• Spider Tank: The Scorpion Sentinel, as its name suggests, is a scorpion-shaped mech armed with a variety of powerful weapons.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: In the playable demo, this boss is rather challenging. Players are encouraged to swap party members at certain times and memorize the Scorpion's attack patterns in order to avoid them. In the full game, this boss is still challenging but a little bit less punishing compared to the demo unless you are playing on Hard Mode.

The Huntsman

The boss of Chapter 2. An elite Shinra trooper that leads the hunt for Cloud in Chapter 2.

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• Degraded Boss: Can later be fought in Chapter 9 & 14 in the Corneo Colosseum as an optional battle.
• Elites Are More Glamorous: His armor and shield are considerably more glamorous than the average Shinra Trooper.
• Flunky Boss: He's accompanied by several Shinra soldiers during his boss fight.
• King Mook: He's a boss version of the Shinra Riot Trooper with more powerful attacks, higher defense, and grenades.
• Lawman Baton: An elite member of Shinra's Public Security force that wields a stun baton as a weapon, which is capable of stunning his target.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: His tower shield protects him against frontal attacks. Cloud has to resort to magic, Counter-Attack or attacking him from the rear to damage him.
• Mook Lieutenant: He serves as a unit commander for the Shinra troops in the Sector 8 town area.
• Shield Bash: His most common attack is a shield bash.
• Stern Chase: He leads Shinra's Public Security efforts in capturing Cloud in Sector 8.

Crab Warden

The boss of Chapter 5. An outdated combat mech and relic of the Wutai War, left to rust in the old train yards.

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• Canon Foreigner: The first Shinra mech boss that was absent from the original.
• Shock and Awe: It has an attack that electrifies the train tracks to deal heavy lightning elemental damage.
• Spider Tank: It's a crab-like tank mecha with four legs and a pair of arm-mounted machine gun turrets.

Airbuster

The boss of Chapter 7. A prototype monster-slaying mech that Heidegger unleashes in an attempt to crush Avalanche when they attack the Sector 5 reactor.

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• Adaptational Badass: In the original game, the Airbuster was something of a pushover once you managed to lock its movement, and wasn't much of a challenge. Here, if the player doesn't go out of their way to sabotage its development, it lives up to its designation and is sickeningly powerful. Even diminishing its capabilities still results in a hell of a fight, as well.
• Battleship Raid: Played with, as the Airbuster is under-construction as Cloud, Barret, and Tifa attack the Sector 5 Mako Reactor, and they can sabotage its construction in order to weaken it.
• Boring, but Practical: Towards the end of the fight, the Airbuster gets the idea to simply fly away from the fight and take to long-range battle. Your only hope of even hitting him at that point is Barret and any lightning materia you thought to equip beforehand while it still retains its powerful payload.
• Boss-Altering Consequence: By gathering key cards scattered throughout the control rooms, you can alter how often the Airbuster uses certain attacks depending on which terminal you use.
• Chest Blaster: It can fire powerful energy beams from its chest-mounted power core.
• Detachment Combat: One of the Airbuster's many new tricks is the ability to detach its arms from its body and use them as independent attack drones.
• Finger Firearms: It can fire lasers from its fingertips, and which inflict the stun status effect.
• Homing Lasers: Airbuster's shoulders house laser cannons that fire a scattershot upward before raining down on the battlefield.
• Mecha: Airbuster is a prototype flight-capable combat mech with a wide array of powerful weapons.
• Ridiculously Potent Explosive: Its Big Bomber units are described as being capable of wiping out entire armies.
• Shout-Out: The original incarnation of the Airbuster was already visually similar to the Zeong from Mobile Suit Gundam. The new version leans into the comparison much harder, giving the Airbuster the Zeong's signature detachable arms and Finger Firearms.
• Super Prototype: It is a prototype mech constructed with the intent of slaying giant monsters.
• Time-Limit Boss: Although the timer is very generous, there is a limit to how long the boss fight can run before Mako Reactor 5 explodes.
• Walking Armory: Electrical fields around its waist, two cannons on its back, Finger Firearms, a Chest Blaster, waist-launched bombs, flamethrowers in its palms, Homing Lasers in its shoulders, and electrical punches.

Hell House

The boss of Chapter 9. The most powerful monster in the Corneo Colosseum, a nightmarish mech shaped like a house.

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• Adaptational Badass: In the original Final Fantasy VII it was a regular but powerful Giant Mook that could be fought in the slums, but in the Remake it's a boss fought in the Corneo Colosseum.
• Adaptational Late Appearance: In the original game, it appeared in the Sector 6 Slums. Here, it appears in the Corneo Colosseum, after the slums have been passed through.
• Artistic License – Engineering: Played for Laughs by the announcers, whose many lines include wondering if the Hell House's architect had "one too many" when designing it.
• Barrier Change Boss: It periodically changes its elemental weakness and absorption along with its elemental attacks.
• Beehive Barrier: It's capable of generating a tessellated force field to protect itself from damage.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: There's absolutely no foreshadowing its appearance, with the only thing preceding it being Corneo suddenly demanding an extra battle in the Colosseum. When assessed, it's noted that nobody knows how it was built.
• Haunted House: It's a creepy mech with the motif of a haunted house.
• Have a Nice Death: Unlike every other boss in the game, losing to the Hell House causes Scotch and Kotch to keep commenting on the Game Over screen, bemoaning Cloud and Aerith's demise.
• Inexplicably Awesome: A huge robotic monster in the shape of a house with house-themed abilities, missiles in the shape of chairs, its Beehive Barrier that's able to change weaknesses and its amazingly-titled God House Mode all come with little to no explanation. Besides bringing a ridiculous and flashy end to Cloud and Aerith's time at the Colosseum, of course.
• Macross Missile Massacre: One of its main attacks is firing volleys of chair-shaped missiles.
• Mechanical Abomination: It's played up as such, with even its dossier noting that its inner workings are a complete mystery.
• Mysterious Past: How, where, when and why it was built, and how Corneo got his hands on it, are never elaborated upon. Same goes for its inner workings and technology. All it's known for is being the Don's secret weapon.
• One-Winged Angel: In the second stage of its battle a face pops out the front, arms from its roof, and rocket boosters from its back end.
• Refuge in Audacity: The original game's Hell House was a unique and bizarre enemy, a sentient house who could attack you. The remake embraces the absurdity and ramps it up, making Hell House a robot built into the shape of a small house, which can launch chairs as missiles as an attack, project a barrier to defend itself, suck a character into itself to pummel them inside and has other abilities like House Call and Housing Rush, all while Corneo's henchman commentators continuously make awful house-related puns. The game is fully aware of how insane the enemy is and lampshades it endlessly.
• Those Magnificent Flying Machines: It's able to fly around the arena using rocket propulsion and eventually sprouts thrusters on its back.
• Turns Red: After taking enough damage, the Hell House shifts from its standard "concealed" form into its true Hell House form.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: It's plausible on Normal difficulty to make your way up to this fight by just mostly dealing physical damage, raising Stagger meters and hitting with weaknesses where applicable. The Hell House then demands that the player watches the fight and strategizes very carefully to be able to stand a snowball's chance in hell of winning without bumping down the difficulty. Similarly, on Hard mode you may have gotten by without changing their character build or worrying about using too much MP in the chapter before reaching the boss - Hell House marks the point where the player needs to plan what materia they’ll need to use in advance, and needs to ration their MP use throughout the chapter to avoid going into the boss battle with a drastically diminished ability to cast spells.
• Walking Tank: How it's designed and acts, being a quadrepedal house with heavy weaponry and thrusters.

Ghoul

A boss in Chapter 11. An amalgam of several ghosts that attack Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith as they make their way through the Train Graveyard.

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• Fusion Dance: It is an amalgam of numerous ghosts, which fuse together to have some "fun" with Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith.
• Mana Drain: Its Etheric Drain skill has it grab Aerith and drain her MP to power up its next skill, Etheric Burst, where it releases the MP in a short-ranged explosion.
• Mind over Matter: It can telekinetically lift objects and throw them around. It will periodically use its telekinesis to rearrange the objects in the room to make navigating it harder.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: While it and its constituent ghosts frequently harass and attack Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith, they're more lonely and bored than anything and just want to play.
• Playing with Fire: It can conjure spectral flames to attack its opponents. One of its normal attacks is to swipe the ground and send out a wave of blue flame, and its Balefire skill has it summon spectral flames to act as mines.
• Stance System: It can shift between corporeal and incorporeal states, respectively rendering magic and physical attacks useless against it.
• Super-Scream: Its Piercing Scream skill, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. It will stun any character that's too close to it.
• Undead Child: The ghosts it is comprised of are all the spirits of children who were abducted and killed by Eligor.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Healing magic and items cause it damage, as befitting an undead enemy.

Eligor

The boss of Chapter 11. A spectral entity that prowls the Train Graveyard, abducting children and feeding off their fear.

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• Adaptational Badass: Single-handedly responsible for the Train Graveyard's dangerous reputation, Eligor condemns lost children into becoming malevolent spirits. It's implied to have a high body count. An interview even confirmed that Eligor battles the party because it foresaw the disturbance in the Lifestream which would result from the Sector 7 Plate collapse and tried to prevent them from saving it, meaning it possessed a level of precognition otherwise only seen in the Arbiters, Aerith, and Sephiroth. Not bad for what used to be a common enemy.
• Anti-Regeneration: In Hard mode, Eligor will also cast Reflect on the party as well which will redirect any beneficial spells to himself including Cure.
• Arc Villain: Of "Chapter 11: Haunted" in Remake. This being serve as the main obstacle to the heroes as they to navigate out of the haunted train graveyard and back to the Sector 7 slums.
• Ascended Extra: It was a normal enemy in the original game, fought as a Giant Mook in random encounters in the Train Graveyard. Now it's a boss.
• Blow You Away: Its Winds of Gehenna skill has it fire a black wind from its halberd.
• Casting a Shadow: It manipulates a dark spectral energy, conjuring tornadoes of black wind and shrouding its would-be victims in darkness to heighten their fear.
• Cyborg: It is a cyborg-like ghost resembling a rider and horse with gears and wheels for hind legs, and the rider portion having a glowing red robotic eye.
• Devil's Pitchfork: Wields a sinister halberd as its primary weapon.
• The Dreaded: This creature has reached urban legend proportion. Marlene tells Tifa of the tale of the Black Wind that takes people away, to be trapped in the Train Graveyard forever.
• Emotion Eater: It is sustained by the fear of its victims.
• Evil Can Not Comprehend Good: It shows Tifa a vision of Marlene, unaware that it would just make her go Mama Bear instead of despairing.
• Eye Beams: Its Piercing Gaze and Sweeping Gaze skills have it fire red lasers from its eye.
• Javelin Thrower: Its Javelin Bolts skill has it rain down electrified copies of its halberd.
• Mythology Gag: Eligor in the original game was notable for having the Striking Staff for Aerith as a stealable weapon, as the Striking Staff is a much more powerful weapon for her normally not available until Junon. Here, the Eligor has the Bladed Staff (which is based in appearance on the Striking Staff) as a stealable item, but this time it's the only way to acquire it at all.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: Like the ghost enemies in the area, Eligor can make himself immune to physical attacks and alternately he can also reflect spells used against him.
• Ninja Pirate Robot Zombie: It's an undead cyborg charioteer.
• Punched Across the Room: A dying Eligor is the victim of the kick equivalent. Tifa jumps up to him and does her Sommersault directly at his head. This smashes him through piles of shipping crates and through the wall surrounding the compound.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Named after a demon from the Ars Goetia described as a ghostly knight riding on a decaying horse.
• Tulpa: In its description, it was formed from the memories of all the suffering that happened in the Train Graveyard.
• Unique Items: Eligor is the only enemy in the game with a truly unique stealable item, the Bladed Staff. Every other enemy has items that can be found or even bought elsewhere (some of these items are almost unique though, such as the Iron Maiden which can only be found once and a 2nd copy stolen from the M.O.T.H Unit.)
• Villain of Another Story: This thing has captured and killed many children over the years and is the reason the Train Graveyard is the haunted hellhole it is. Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith only go through its territory to get back to the Sector 7 slums and kill it because it gets in their way.
• Would Hurt a Child: It abducts children to prey off their fear until they die and become the ghosts haunting the Train Graveyard.

Failed Experiment

The boss of Chapter 13. A colossal humanoid monster fought in the ruins of the secret underground Shinra laboratory beneath Sector 7.

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• Canon Foreigner: The Failed Experiment and Unknown entities were completely absent from prior installments in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII.
• Combat Tentacles: Unlike its lesser brethren, which only have one tentacle, it has four tentacles protruding from its back.
• Escaped from the Lab: The collapse of the Sector 7 plate enabled it and its kindred to escape from the stasis tanks they were being held in.
• Foreshadowing: It has an attack called Livewire, in which it discharges electrical blasts after pounding its chest. This invokes another unfortunate victim of Hojo's experiments: Vincent Valentine. Vincent's Death Gigas transformation has the same attack.
• Gone Horribly Right: It was once a test-subject in Shinra's Deepground experiments, which turned it and the Unknown Entities that accompany it into monsters. Despite having been deemed failures, it and its lesser brethren are still highly effective and dangerous combatants.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: It can grab, electrify, and throw its lesser brethren at its opponents.
• Shock and Awe: It primarily uses electrical attacks to stun its prey.
• Was Once a Man: Following its defeat, it's revealed that the Failed Experiment and its lesser kindred are cognates of the makonoids from the original game, being the result of Professor Hojo abducting civilians and infusing them with mako and Jenova cells until they mutate into monsters.
• Wolfpack Boss: It's fought alongside a swarm of similar smaller creatures, which it can throw at Barret and Tifa or absorb to heal itself.

Type- 0 Behemoth

An optional boss in Chapter 14. A massive beast experimented on by Shinra's R&D department, found in the Sector Seven Hidden Laboratory.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: Behemoths were encountered far later in the original game, during the raid on the Midgar Cannon. This one is found during the first run through Midgar.
• Counter-Attack: If hit with magic while the horns are intact, it will retaliate with its Counter Flare skill, conjuring an explosion.
• The Dreaded: It is a legendary monster, and even other monsters are terrified of it. Even Shinra’s science division are afraid of it, as it’s sealed in a separate room with the door covered in security tape warning any unsuspecting soul not to open the door.
• Foreshadowing: It can be heard shortly after Barret, Cloud & Tifa are separated in Chapter 13.
• Horn Attack: One of its main means of offense is using its massive horns to ram and toss opponents.
• Mighty Roar: It can be heard yowling throughout in Chapter 13, and its Enemy Intel dossier notes other monsters are terrified of its roar.
• Panthera Awesome: It's a massive beast resembling a panther with a fin on its back and bull-like horns.
• Volcanic Veins: Its body is covered in glowing red markings which intensify as it powers up.

Tonberry

An optional boss in Chapter 14. An exotic monster imported by Don Corneo to fight in his Colosseum, which his thugs sic on Cloud's party.

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• Degraded Boss: Hell House on Hard mode can periodically summon a group of three Tonberries. Whilst they’re as lethal as ever, they have significantly less health than the one fought in Sector 5.
• The Dreaded: Despite its adorable appearance, it is a powerful and extremely dangerous monster. Corneo's thugs wisely choose to stay out of its way when it fights Cloud's party, and immediately surrender upon its defeat.
• Implacable Man: It has a load of health and is extremely difficult to Stagger. Unless it is Staggered or defeated, it does not flinch or get knocked down from any of the party's attacks.
• One-Hit Kill: Its knife attacks one-shot anyone they hit. It can also use two spells called "Tantrum" and "Doom and Gloom" that do the same thing.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: Small as a moogle, but can one-hit ko anyone.
• The Slow Walk: As true to form and ominous as ever.
• Teleportation: To make up for its slow walking speed, it sometimes teleports around the battlefield.
• Time Stands Still: It likes to cast Stop on the party, leaving them helpless as it slowly walks up to them to stab them.

The Valkyrie

The boss of Chapter 15. A flying mech patrolling the ruins of the Sector 7 plate, hunting for survivors.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: In the original game, it appeared as Barret, Aerith and Red XIII took the elevator to the ground floor in Shinra Tower, attacking immediately after the Hundred Gunner fell. Here, it instead attacks Cloud, Tifa and Barret as they make their way across the ruins of the Sector 7 plate to the Shinra Tower.
• Dub Name Change: In Japanese, it retains the name Heli Gunner from the original Final Fantasy VII.
• More Dakka: It's armed with a pair of massive rotary cannons, and can also fire grenades.
• Taking You with Me: Self-destructs in defeat. Being that the boss battle takes place amidst the ruins of Sector 7, this is more effective (if equally as unsuccessful) than the Airbuster’s attempt.

Specimen H0512

The boss of Chapter 16. A twisted, grotesque abomination created by Professor Hojo.

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• Arm Cannon: Its left arm is a radial mouth that acts as a projectile weapon.
• Cthulhumanoid: It is a towering humanoid abomination with a tentacled head.
• Enemy Summoner: It spawns little spider-legged eyeball-monsters called H0521-OPTs to fight alongside it.
• Goal-Oriented Evolution: Its dossier states that it evolves through combat to become more efficient at killing enemies.
• Too Many Mouths: It has grotesque Lamprey Mouths on its left arm and right shoulder.

Brain Pod

A boss in Chapter 17. A techno-organic drone that aids Professor Hojo.

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• Adaptational Badass: In the original, it was an easily-dispatched regular enemy in a random encounter. Here, it's a boss battle.
• Ascended Extra: In the original Final Fantasy VII, it was a basic enemy found in the Shinra Headquarters after Jenova escapes. Now it's a full-fledged boss battle.
• Me's a Crowd: Spawns several clones of itself for the second half of the boss fight.
• Nightmare Face: Unlike the Brain Pod from the original Final Fantasy VII which had a goofy-looking head within, this one's face is a nightmarish, techno-organic one.
• Poisonous Person: Discharges toxic waste that deals damage over time to those standing in it.

Swordipede

A boss in Chapter 17. A flying oarfish-like robot made of sharp blades.

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• Adaptational Badass: In the original, it was an easily-dispatched regular enemy in a random encounter. Here, it's a full-fledged boss battle.
• Ascended Extra: In the original Final Fantasy VII it was a basic enemy found in the Shinra Headquarters. Now it's a full-fledged boss battle, and much larger in size.
• Dub Name Change: Was called Sword Dance in the original Final Fantasy VII, and retains this name in the Japanese version.
• Sequential Boss: The first half of the battle has Cloud and Barret combat it, after which it retreats to the area where Tifa, Aerith, and Red XIII are.
• Spin Attack: Several of its attacks involve spinning and using its bladed body like a buzzsaw.

Jenova Dreamweaver

A boss in Chapter 17. An incarnation of Jenova stated to be a top-secret bioweapon engineered by Hojo. It is manifested by Marco, a Sephiroth Clone who had been living at Marle's apartment complex.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: While itself a Canon Foreigner, it comes from a batch of several similar Jenova forms that were originally first encountered on the ship to Costa del Sol.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: Its existence is one for Sephiroth and Jenova; whereas in the core game all the Sephiroth Body Doubles were pieces of Jenova, here it's an illusion created by a Sephiroth Clone.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Has a pair of jet-black eyes deep in its skull sockets. Also doubles as a subtle nod to The Thing (1982), where in the 1982 version of the film a frequent hint as to which human was infected by the Thing were pitch-black eyes.
• Canon Foreigner: The only bosses who attacked you when fleeing Shinra headquarters were Shinra-aligned mechs, let alone a minion of Sephiroth's.
• Combat Tentacles: Jenova Dreamweaver has a pair of tentacles protruding from its lower body, and in the second stage of its boss fight can project tentacles through the portals that open in the floor to attack foes keeping their distance.
• Dub Name Change: Called "Jenova Beat" (as in heart beat) in Japan, tying into the Theme Naming of Birth, Life and Death of the similarly-shaped Jenova-forms in the original game.
• Eldritch Abomination: It is a monstrous incarnation of Jenova, appearing as a grotesquely twisted pillar of flesh and tentacles that has corrupted the terrain around it.
• Master of Illusion: It is stated to have the ability to create potent hallucinations, causing the party to perceive a cavern with pillars of crystalized mako.
• Meaningful Name: In the original Japanese version it's called "Jenova Beat", to fit the Theme Naming of the Jenova forms of the original game (Birth, Life, and Death). In the English version its called "Jenova Dreamweaver", as it's merely an illusion manifested by a Sephiroth Clone and not a real entity.
• Meat Moss: The arena in which it's fought is a Cetra cavern deep in the Planet, with pillars of crystalized mako covered by pulsating tendrils of Jenova's biomass. In the third stage of the fight, gobs of corrosive ooze drip off the ceiling.
• No Body Left Behind: After it's defeated its body turns into that of a Sephiroth Clone and disappears into wisps of darkness.
• Shattering the Illusion: Killing it shatters the illusory world it creates, and kills the Sephiroth Clone that conjured it.
• Skull for a Head: Jenova Dreamweaver has fanged skull for a face, with a pair of mandibles where its lower jaw should be.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: While Red XIII tells the team that Jenova Dreamweaver — or at least the arena it creates — is merely an illusion and to stay calm, it's still capable of injuring the team.

The Arsenal

The final boss in Chapter 17.

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• Arm Cannon: Its left arm is a rotary cannon made of smaller rotary cannons, and its right arm is a powerful plasma cannon.
• Chest Blaster: Like the Airbuster, it can fire powerful energy beams from its torso-mounted core.
• Corridor Cubbyhole Run: Several of its attacks are very powerful, but the player can use the pillars around the area to hide from said attacks.
• Desperation Attack: When it's on its last legs it will become immobile and only use the One-Hit Kill Cry Havoc as an attack.
• Dub Name Change: Was called Hundred Gunner in the original Final Fantasy VII, which it retains in the Japanese original.
• Homing Lasers: Its Obliterating laser attack fires a massive volley of energy beams that home in on their target.
• Humongous Mecha: It's a massive tank-like mech that chases Barret, Aerith, and Red XIII through the Shinra HQ.
• Mythology Gag:
  • It first makes its appearance in the lift where Barret, Aerith and Red XIII are in, just like in the original game, although it is no longer fought on the elevator.
  • Cry Havoc's 9999 surefire damage attack is reminiscent of the Weapons' Light Pillar attack from Final Fantasy VIII.
• One-Hit Kill: When it's on its last legs, it will charge up a massive Beam Spam attack called Cry Havoc. Anyone caught in the open will take 9999 damage, and it will also destroy cover (but the character behind will be safe).
• Shoot the Medic First: In the first phase of the fight, it's protected by three Barrier Drones that put up an invincible shield on it, and they need to be taken down in order to make the boss vulnerable.
• Tank Goodness: It's a four-barreled tank-like mech with a rotary cannon and a plasma cannon for "arms".
• Time-Limit Boss: In its final phase, it will repeatedly charge up and unleash a One-Hit Kill Beam Spam attack that instakills anyone not behind cover and destroys any cover it hits, meaning that you need to destroy it quickly before it causes a Total Party Kill.

M.O.T.O.R.

A boss in Chapter 18.

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• All There in the Manual: Its name is only included in supplemental material, such as the art book included with the deluxe edition.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: Armed with four torso-mounted flamethrowers, which it uses in conjunction with its rotating torso.
• Dub Name Change: Was called Motor Ball in the original Final Fantasy VII, which it retains in the Japanese version.
• Mecha: One of the largest of Shinra's mechs, sporting a humanoid torso atop six massive spiked wheels.
• No Name Given: No name appears above its health bar and it doesn’t appear in the Enemy Intel page on the menu screen, as Cloud can’t use materia whilst driving and thus cannot use Assess to view the enemy’s weakness.
• Shielded Core Boss: To damage it, Cloud needs to deplete the health bars on all its wheels, causing it to become vulnerable to damage for a short while before it repairs its wheels again.
• Vehicular Combat: Chases the remnants of Avalanche as they flee Midgar, with Cloud fighting it from his motorcycle and Barret from the back of a stolen truck. This is in contrast to the original game, where it was fought as a standard-gameplay boss fight only after the motorcycle mini-game sequence was already completed.

Whisper Harbinger

^{Click here to see Whisper Rubrum}

^{Click here to see Whisper Viridi}

^{Click here to see Whisper Croceo}

A boss in Chapter 18. A colossal amalgam of countless Whispers, manifested as a last-ditch effort to stop Avalanche from defying destiny.

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• All There in the Manual:
  • The official Ultimania guide to Remake makes it explicit that Rubrum, Viridi, and Croceo use the same weapons and fighting styles as Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo from Advent Children.
  • The score for the remake also identifies the piece that plays when the Whisper Harbinger (and the three sub-bosses) reveal themselves as "Arbiter of Fate - Advent". This appears to be a further reference that the enemies are tied in some fashion to the preceding anime.
• Anti-Villain: The Whispers are not actually the real enemy whatsoever, but the heroes firmly believe otherwise and think each of the visions given to them are some sort of bad future.
• Blow You Away: Its Correction skill has it conjure a massive wind to blow the party away.
• Call-Back:
  • Rubrum, Viridi, and Croceo's weapons, fighting styles, move names and summoning of Bahamut all reference the three Remnants of Sephiroth — Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo — from the Advent Children sequel film.
  • In the Japanese version, one of Croceo's special moves is named "Velvet Nightmare" - a reference to the nickname of Yazoo's primary weapon from the same film.
• Dark Is Not Evil: If it won, it would effectively have saved the world by ensuring the timeline where Sephiroth is defeated remains intact.
• Eldritch Abomination: It is an amalgam of countless Whispers, connected to all the threads of the space-time continuum. Barret even lampshades how it's more worthy of being called an arbiter of fate than the individual Whispers are.
• Enemy Summoner: It summons a trio of lesser Whisper entities — Rubrum, Croceo, and Viridi — to dispose of Avalanche.
• Evil Counterpart: Subverted. Initially, its three apparitions appear to be this to our heroes (Rubrum is a counterpart to Cloud, having a massive BFS; Croceo is a counterpart to Barret, having a pair of Arm Cannons; and Viridi is a counterpart to Tifa, having a massive mace-like fist). However Rubrum's sword is thin and wielded in his left arm, Croceo has two arm cannons rather than a single gun and Viridi rather than boxing has a single enlarged fist. As confirmed in the Ultimania, this is because they are in fact more closely tied to the three Remnants of Sephiroth. Kadaj was a left-handed katana wielder, Yazoo used two handguns, and Loz fought with a pile bunker. They are also all linked elementally: Kadaj used fire magic, Yazoo wind, and Loz lightning. In fusing into Bahamut, they also call back to the summoning of Bahamut SIN.
• Foreshadowing: The fact that the Harbinger's apparitions are based off of the Remnants of Sephiroth seems to be completely out of left field, as taking the form of an enemy to the Planet should be the last thing the Whispers would be doing. Come Rebirth, we find out the Black-robed Whispers of Fate are actually under Sephiroth's influence, versus the White-robed ones that appear in that game to oppose them. If this is retroactive for Remake, it means the Harbinger was potentially one elaborate Batman Gambit by Sephiroth to produce a false villain so the heroes would make changing the world easier for him.
• Fusion Dance:
  • The Whisper Harbinger is formed of countless Whispers merging together into a colossal entity.
  • At the third stage of the boss fight, Rubrum, Croceo, and Viridi amalgamate into Whisper Bahamut.
• Gem Tissue: Rubrum is partially comprised of red crystal, Croceo of yellow crystal, and Viridi of blue crystal.
• Godzilla Threshold: The Whispers were already the Planet's response to Sephiroth attempting to Screw Destiny, but the Harbinger is essentially a Weapon in all but name in its last-ditch attempts to prevent history from being distorted.
• Non-Malicious Monster: It just wants to preserve the future where the Planet's survival is guaranteed, and repeatedly attempts to talk down the party by showing them visions of the original future.
• No-Sell: It's completely immune to being directly attacked, and can only be damaged through attacking Rubrum, Croceo, and Viridi.
• Poor Communication Kills: What ends up causing its demise. If the cast could realize that what they saw in the Psychic Dreams for Everyone were not inherently a bad thing (though it would require Aerith's death as per the original timeline), not to mention Sephiroth luring them into this distrust and situation to begin with, this entire battle wouldn't need to happen. And with its death comes a theoretical new cavalcade of problems.
• Pre-Final Boss: The second-to-last boss faced in the main story, followed by the battle with Sephiroth.
• Psychic Dreams for Everyone: It inflicts visions of the future as it should be on the party, attempting to get them to give up on changing it. Unfortunately, the visions it shows are of things like Meteor, so they don't listen.
• Psycho Rangers: Rubrum, Croceo, and Viridi have similar fighting styles to Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz, respectively.
• Reality Warper: It creates a hurricane of darkness containing chunks of rubble copied from pieces of Midgar.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Rubrum, Croceo, and Viridi's Enemy Intel profiles state they're from a future timeline that they're fighting to preserve.

Malboro

An optional boss in Chapter 17, fought as part of the Shinra VR challenges.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: In the original game, Malboros didn’t appear until the start of the second disc & on a completely different continent. Whilst it doesn’t appear outside of the Battle Simulator, it’s still far earlier than in the original game.
• Adaptational Wimp: Despite being upgraded to an actual boss, it's actually easier to defeat than its original FFVII incarnation.
• Ascended Extra: It was a normal enemy in the original Final Fantasy VII, but in the Remake it's a boss.
• Breath Weapon: Its signature Bad Breath attack has it exhale a noxious spray of red acid from its maw, inflicting numerous status effects.
• Man-Eating Plant: It's a monstrous plant-like monster with thick vine-like tentacles and a gaping fang-lined maw.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: It has a gaping maw lined with hundreds of fangs.
• Nerf: Its Bad Breath attack is nowhere near as dangerous as it was in the original game; it's unlikely to hit more than one of your party members, the statuses it inflicts can now wear off with time, and it can be avoided by simply running behind the Malboro when it attempts to use it.
• Tentacled Terror: It's a nightmarish plant-like monster with a gaping fang-lined maw and body bristling in Combat Tentacles.
• Waddling Head: It is a massive set of jaws with eyestalks on top and tentacles on the bottom.

Pride and Joy Prototype

The final enemy of the Shinra VR challenges. A virtual reality recreation of a discontinued Shinra weapon.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: Technically just a prototype of the actual Proudclod, and as a virtual reality program it doesn't physically exist, but it appears well before the battle for the mako cannon the original one was used in.
• Dub Name Change: The Japanese version calls it "Proud Clad Unit Zero", Proud Clad being the correct version of the original Final Fantasy VII mistranslation.
• Early-Bird Cameo: A partially constructed version of the mech can be seen during the second chapter of “INTERmission” as Yuffie & Sonon make their way through Shinra’s Advanced Weapons lab. The size of it is quite a bit bigger then the Prototype and may be the in-development Proudclod itself.
• Energy Weapon: It's most powerful attack are the two Shoulder Cannon lasers.
• Mecha: It's a little smaller than the Arsenal but it's still the most powerful Shinra mech in-game.
• Mighty Glacier: Not winning any marathons but hits like a runaway tank and harder to put down. It gets faster when it Turns Red.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The name of the boss is a reference to what Heidegger and Scarlet referred to the Proud Clod as: the Pride and Joy of Shinra.
  • The Proudclod dropped Cloud's second strongest sword, the Ragnarok. The reward it drops is named after the translation of Ragnarok into German.
• Optional Boss: It is only available to fight on hard mode after facing all other VR challenges along with all the Corneo Colosseum challenges.
• Super Prototype: A virtual reality recreation of a currently discontinued Shinra weapon.

Bosses Introduced in INTERmission

Gigantipede

A centipede shaped robot that Yuffie and Sonon face while infiltrating Shinra.

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• Canon Foreigner: The Gigantipede mech was completely absent from prior installments in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII.

Crimson Mare

A Shinra prototype weapon Scarlet commands to face the trespassing Yuffie and Sonon.

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• Ace Custom: The Crimson Mare a customized Shinra battle armor that Scarlet built for herself, making it much stronger than the regular Shinra Mini-Mecha like the Sweeper.
• Arm Cannon: Its cannon configuration gives it two Makocannons on its arms.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Attacking Scarlet will force the Crimson Mare into the Pressured state.
• BFS: The sword and shield configuration gives it a Claymore the length of the mech to fight with.
• Blade Spam: In Hard Mode, its sword and shield phase has a special move called Fulgent Blade, where it energizes its Claymore with Mako energy and performs six powerful slashes.
• Color Motif: Like its rider, it has a red color motif. Even its bullets and energy beams are red.
• Dash Attack: When wielding its Twin Blades, one of its attacks has it charge at you with its blades ignited.
• Death from Above: When wielding its Makocannons, it will fire into the air to rain down energy blasts from above.
• Didn't Need Those Anyway!: Its weapons can be destroyed to temporarily halt its attacks, but Scarlet will simply replace them with other weapons.
• Dual Wielding: The Crimson Mare can swap between Twin Swords and twin Makocannons.
• Elemental Weapon: It starts the fight armed with twin swords that it can ignite with flames for a Dash Attack.
• Energy Weapon: It can fire lasers from the Makocannons on its arms. Its Fusillade skill has it fire a Wave-Motion Gun from both cannons.
• Fire Is Red: Its a red Mini-Mecha that can use fire and heat attacks.
• Flaming Sword: Downplayed. Its blades are ignited with heat, but its slashes and thrust do not deal fire elemental damage.
• Flawed Prototype: Its analysis description points out that Scarlet designed it with form over function, and that its extravagancies — like the large open cockpit — provide exploitable weak spots.
• Flunky Boss: Two of its skills have it summon Sentry Rays and Sentry Launchers to aid it in battle.
• Gatling Good: Its Bullet Barrage skill has it fire a barrage of bullets from a gun that iis just beneath its Twin Blades.
• In a Single Bound: Despite its size, it can jump to incredible heights, which Scarlet does whenever she changes its arm weaponry.
• King Mook: It's basically an Ace Custom of the common Sweeper and Cutter mecha mooks.
• Lightning Bruiser: Despite its size, it is deceptively fast and has a plethora of damaging weapons and attacks.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: One of its weapon configurations has it armed with a large Claymore and a shield, which it can use to stab forward in a dash attack.
• Macross Missile Massacre: Its Rocket Launcher skill will have it fire a barrage of missiles.
• Midfight Weapon Exchange: The boss fight has three phases, and each phase has Scarlet "test" one arm weapon configuration against Yuffie and Sonom. All the weapon switches happen in a cutscene.
• Mini-Mecha: Scarlet pilots it and it's only about 3 meters tall.
• Mythology Gag: A red-dressed blonde rider piloting a bipedal Mini-Mecha with an open-air cockpit? Looks like Scarlet's been taking cues from Final Fantasy VI.
• Playing with Fire: Its Flame Pillar skill has it conjure fire underneath Yuffie or Sonon.
• Spin Attack: It can perform a spinning attack with its Twin Blades or its Claymore.
• Super Prototype: Scarlet hasn't fully completed the design and considers the battle with Yuffie and Sonon a worthy test drive.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Its Makocannon can charge and fire laser beams. In Hard Mode, its Makocannon phase gains a special move called Fusillade where it combines both cannons to fire a devastating laser beam.

Projector / Diabolic Creation

A small, holographic projector that floats inside a now-obsolete version of Shinra's VR combat simulator. It contains stores of monster and weaponry data, which it uses to virtually construct training exercises. One of the monsters it can project is a man-made monstrosity created by Shinra's Research and Development Division.

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• Dual Boss: Of a kind; the Projector completely lacks any at all ability to defend itself, but it's also completely invulnerable until you've defeated the Diabolic Creation. The Diabolic Creation, in the meantime, is the primary threat in the fight, but is also, in actuality, a mere holographic projection that can be recreated by the Projector every time you take it down unless you destroy the Projector itself.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Diabolic Creation is no less monstrous than Specimen H0512.
• Flunky Boss: The Projector brings forth enemies that you have to defeat before it's rendered vulnerable.
• Lost in Translation: The Diabolic Creation's Japanese name is "Heretic Rayleigh", alluding both to the Jenova-infused Heretic Hojo boss from the original game as well as Professor Rayleigh, a Shinra researcher from Before Crisis. The obvious implications being that the Diabolic Creation is a digitally preserved version of Professor Reyleigh post-exposure to Jenova cells.
• Master of Illusion: Of a more technological kind; the Projector can create replicas of enemies just from data.
• To Serve Man: The Diabolic Creation is explicitly stated in its Assessment data to have been disposed of in-part due to its cannibalistic nature.
• Was Once a Man: Given the available evidence, the Diabolic Creation was likely a human infused with Jenova cells, with its Japanese name indicating it was Professor Rayleigh.

Bosses Introduced in Rebirth

Materia Guardian

A boss in Chapter 1. A creature that inhabits the Nibel Mountains and protects the natural Materia that form in the region, attacking the Nibel Reactor survey team sent by Shinra.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: In Rebirth it's fought during the Nibelheim flashback, while in the original game it was encountered well after that point when the main party travels between Nibelheim and Rocket Town.
• Horn Attack: It has a Rhinoceros beetle-like horn jutting from its head, which it can use both to ram opponents and fire energy beams from its tip.
• It Can Think: Sephiroth notes that the creature believes that the Nibel Reactor survey team is after the Materia in the region. Cloud suggesting trying to communicate with it, although it's clearly not interested.
• Power Pincers: One of its sets of legs has powerful pincers it can use to grab opponents, incapacitating them.

Midgardsormr

A boss in Chapter 2. A colossal monstrous serpent that lives in a swamp and devours any who intrude in its territory.

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• Adaptation Deviation: The role it plays in Rebirth differs from the one it did in the original Final Fantasy VII in a couple of ways:
  • In the original it played the role of overleveled Beef Gate to force the player to learn how to capture Chocobos so they could evade it in the overworld. In Rebirth it's now the mandatory boss encounter for the end of Chapter 2.
  • After crossing the swamp in the original, the party would discover one of them dead and impaled on a tree, with the party presuming it was Killed Offscreen by Sephiroth, estabilishing just how strong he is if he can beat an enemy that the party had to avoid. In Rebirth, after defeating it, the snake will pull Cloud underwater in a cutscene and Sephitroth will show to rescue Cloud, easily dispatching the snake with a spell that throws it out of the water and impales it on a tree.
• Adaptation Name Change: Due to a mistranslation it was named "Midgar Zolom" in the original Final Fantasy VII. Now it's called Midgardsormr, which was the original intention.
• Adaptational Wimp: In the original game, the Midgardsormr (or "Midgar Zolom" as it was mistranslated back then) was an overleveled Beef Gate that you were expected to run from instead of fight until much later into the game. Here, while it's still a dangerous enemy, becoming a mandatory boss fight means it can be defeated as normal, though not killed, at least until Sephiroth shows up.
• Bootstrapped Leitmotif: Its boss themes are all remixes of "Let the Battles Begin," the regular battle theme from the original game, which also played when fighting the Midgardsormr back then.
• Breath Weapon: It can shoot streams of flame that it can focus into a devastating energy beam.
  • In its second phase, it will start using its "Scorching Breath" attack, where it will breathe fire while doing a 360-degree spin. But it has a large windup and an obvious tell, giving the party a change to back away from it.
  • In its final phase, it will start using the "Beta'' attack, where it will fire a concentrated heat beam into the ground, creating a huge Area of Effect attack.
• Boss Arena Urgency: Its "Toxic Waters" attack will have it use its venomous fangs to spread poison into the marsh.
• Composite Character: Of a sort. In the original game, the Midgardsormr who would attack the party in the overworld was a different individual from the one the party later finds impaled by Sephiroth on a tree (to justify why it can still attack you after witnessing that scene). Here, it's the same one.
• Getting Eaten Is Harmless: The Midgardsormr's bestiary entry notes it likes to swallow its prey whole, and can do so to party members—incapacitating them until it's forced to vomit them back out.
• The Great Serpent: It's a colossal cobra-like snake with crocodilian scutes and horns on its head, large enough to easily swallow anything that trespasses in its territory.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: After being defeated, it's no worse for wear and grabs Cloud in its coils before diving into the swamp to drown and devour him.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: When it tries to eat Sephiroth, he conjures a whirlpool that launches it dozens of feet into the air and impales it through the head on a sharpened treetop.
• Mole Monster: It can dive underground for a few moments, before erupting from beneath a party member to catch them in its mouth in a Grapple Move. The only way to avoid the attack is by dodging it when the water begins to vibrate.
• Mugging the Monster: When Sephiroth shows up to bail Cloud out of becoming the Midgardsormr's snack, it promptly tries to eat him and is effortlessly defeated in a Curb-Stomp Battle.
• Tail Slap: Its "Sweep" attack will have it whip its giant tail in a 360-degree spin.
• That's No Moon: While coiled up and sleeping in the swamp, it's mistaken for an island by Cloud's team—who wake it up by clambering onto its back.
• To Serve Man: It's a colossal monstrous serpent with a preference for eating humans, with signs outside the swamp warning travellers to ride a Chocobo if they're not especially fast.
• Swallowed Whole: It's Grapple Move will have them grab a party member and swallow them whole, removing them from the battle for a time, before they're spit out.
• Use Your Head: In addition to the spiralled horns on the side of its head, it has a Pachycephalosaurus-like head-dome it can use to bash into opponents.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: On Hard Mode, the Midgardsormr will probably be the first serious indication that simply tanking and healing through attacks won't cut it anymore, as Beta is near-guaranteed to wipe the party without setting up Elemental materia beforehand to defend against the fire damage.
• The Worf Effect: After being defeated, a cutscene will trigger where the Midgardsormr will still manage to grab Cloud and drag him deep beneath the water, rendering Cloud helpless. But then Sephiroth shows up for a Villainous Rescue, and finishing off the enemy that the party couldn't handle with a single slash and a spell.

Mythril Golem

A boss in Chapter 3.

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• Beam Spam: It's spines can shoot out a multitude of laser beams at Barret and Red.
• Canon Foreigner: The Mythril Golem, while being a recurring enemy throughout the series as a whole, was completely absent from prior installments in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The only way to tell it has a "head" is because of the glowing red eyes on it, showing it's a hostile creature.
• Rock Monster: He's a golem made out of animated pieces of Mythril, having gained sentience due to exposure to Mako.

Terror of the Deep

A boss in Chapter 4.

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• Adaptation Name Change: It was called Bottomswell in the original Final Fantasy VII, but Rebirth renames it to Terror of the Deep.
• Making a Splash: It has power of water is uses to conjure spouts of water from the ocean, spray jets, and entrap party members in a cell of water.
• Prehensile Tail: In addition to being able to Tail Slap, the Terror's tail is also quite prehensile, able to do a Grapple Move with it and fling the party member around if not interrrupted.

Jenova Emergent

A boss in Chapter 5. A manifestation of Jenova fought on the Shinra-8, born from several Sephiroth clones merging with Jenova's severed arm.

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• Adaptation Name Change: Was called Jenova Birth back in the original "Final Fantasy VII".
• Combat Tentacles: She has several tentacles sprouting from her body, and summons more of them during the third phase of her boss fight.
• Eye Beams: In her second phase she can fire beams of purple energy from her numerous eyes.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: Sprouts several glowing, purple eyes across her side and on her tongue when entering her second phase.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: In her second phase she sprouts multiple arms from the right side of her body.
• Metamorphosis Monster: In her first phase she starts out dangling from the ceiling, but in her second phase she sprouts numerous additional arms and eyes, and crawls around on multiple bloated legs.
• Stationary Boss: In the first phase of her boss fight she's rooted to the ceiling by a tumorous mass of flesh, though in the second stage she detaches and starts moving around on multiple legs.

Grasptropod

A boss in Chapter 6. An ammonite-shaped mech sent by Hojo to capture the Sephiroth clone/fiend hybrids he unleashes in Costa del Sol and when Cloud and company intervene Hojo aims its multiple tentacles at them.

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• Canon Foreigner: The Grasptropod was completely absent from prior installments in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII.
• Duel Boss: At first Cloud has two party members for backup, but they are quickly captured by the mech, forcing him to fight it alone.
• Mythology Gag: A boss with long arms on sand, that takes away two party members to fight solo is the staple of the Ruby Weapon. Unfortunately, cheesing it with unconscious members is not possible.

Custom Valkyrie

A boss in Chapter 7.

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• Fire-Breathing Weapon: This Valkyrie eschews all the unique weapons of the original for flamethrowers and a lot of them.
• Moveset Clone: As a modified version of the Valkyrie, it shares a lot of its moves and animations with its previous iteration.

Gigatrice

A boss in Chapter 7. An avian monster who inhabits Mt. Corel.

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• Blow You Away: Can create wind-elemental cyclones by beating its wings.
• Feathered Fiend: It's a large, predatory avian monster with sharp claws and multiple wings.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The Gigatrice's biggest weakpoint is that if the cyclones it creates are hit with a different elemental magic, it gets out of its control and damages the Gigatrice.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: After the battle, the Gigatrice simply leaves down the mountain than continue fighting the party.

Anuran Suppressor

A boss in Chapter 8. A Shinra riot tank piloted by Palmer.

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• Animal Mecha: It's a Shinra war machine built in the shape of a giant frog.
• Phallic Weapon: The laser cannon on the mech is fired from below its body, giving it an appearance not unlike certain parts of the male anatomy.
• Lightning Lash: Its Amphibian Laser attack is less of a laser and more of an electrified cable that it flails about, drawing parallels with a frog's tongue. Unfortunately Palmer tends to end the attack by accidentally electrocuting his own mech with said cable afterward.
• Mini-Mecha: It's a bipedal frog-shaped war machine. The description says it's semi-automated, which is why even someone as incompetent as Palmer can pilot it.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Palmer's lack of skill as a pilot means that most of his attempts to direct the Anuran Suppressor result in it toppling over after its attacks in a vulnerable state. However, it makes up for this by having a variety of weapons at its disposal and can even hurt the party by falling on them.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Its strongest weapon is a massive laser cannon.

Specimen H1024

A boss in Chapter 9. Another of Hojo's grotesque experiments, now weaponized by Scarlet.

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• Canon Foreigner: Specimen H1024 was completely absent from prior installments in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII.
• Cthulhumanoid: It's just as grotesque and inhuman as Specimen H0512 was, this time having multiple limbs.
• Punny Name: It's a variant of H0512 and its name is the same number doubled.

Crimson Mare Mk. II

A boss in Chapter 9. A modified version of Scarlet's blood-red battle armor that she rides in battle to face the party.

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• Ace Custom: It's the improved form of Scarlet's customized Shinra battle armor, this time it is stable enough for her to deploy it in the field.
• Arm Cannon: Its cannon configuration gives it two Makocannons on its arms.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Inverted from its previous fight, now both of its arms must be destroyed so that Scarlet (the weak point) can be targeted.
• Boss-Altering Consequence: You can destroy the Mark II's arms, changing it's attach patterns accordingly. Starting out with twin swords and relentless slashing attacks, destroying those has it equip cannon arms, allowing it to bombard you at mid-range. Destroying those causes it to equip close-range drill gauntlets that, while surprisingly easier to dodge than the last two, hit like a freight train and usually result in the Crimson Mare getting far too close for comfort. If you manage to destroy those too, the boss fight ends instantly regardless of how much health the main mech has left. That said, there's nothing stopping you from destroying one arm of the pair you're having the least difficulty dealing with, and wailing on the main body with impunity since you've essentially created a very large blindspot the machine can no longer adequately cover (It should be noted that Scarlet will always change out the arms her machine is using based on health thresholds, so if you're adopting this strategy, do note that you'd essentially be doing it 3 times at most and destroying the arms is arguably faster overall unless you're taking advantage of the extra range to constantly stagger the boss).
• Color Motif: Retains the red color motif of the previous iteration.
• Dash Attack:
  • Its "X-ecution" move has the mech charge while simultaneously slash its Saber arms in an X pattern.
  • Its Spinning Thrust move has it charge forward while rapidly spinning its Twin Sabers.
• Detachment Combat: One of Scarlet's new tricks in Rebirth is to detach her arm parts and have them fight as independent drones, not unlike the Airbuster. Since this trick also means that spare arm parts can fly to her from her nearby airship, this also lets the Crimson Mare maintain its arm-swapping gimmick anywhere instead of only inside Scarlet's own test chamber.
• Didn't Need Those Anyway!: Its weapons can be destroyed to temporarily halt its attacks, but Scarlet will simply replace them with other weapons.
• Dual Wielding: The Mark II will swap between twin sabers, twin Makocannons, and twin drill gauntlets.
• Energy Weapon: The Makocannon arms remain as her weapons in the second phase, and she still fires concentrated mako energy bullets and laser beams.
• Gatling Good: The Twin Saber arms retain the guns beneath the blades, allowing her to fire a barrage of bullets in the first phase.
• Jet Pack: Its biggest upgrade compared to the previous version is that it has a new jetpack attached to it that allows it to fly.
• Mecha Expansion Pack: The Crimson Mare returns in Rebirth as Mark II, sporting a new jetpack and with its arms upgraded to be able to fly on their own.
• Lightning Bruiser: Thanks to its new Jet Pack, it's even faster than it was before while hitting even harder thanks to its new melee weaponry.
• Logical Weakness: Destroying all three sets of the Mark II's arms will instantly end the boss battle, since doing so means the machine no longer has any means with which to attack you.
• Macross Missile Massacre: It can fire barrages of homing missiles from its body.
• Midfight Weapon Exchange: The boss fight has three phases with three distinct arm weapons (Twin Sabers, Twin Makoccanons, and a pain of Drill Gauntlets) that will swap if they''re destroyed or when the Crimson Mare's health drops to a certain threshold. All the weapon switches happen via a cutscene.
• Mini-Mecha: An upgraded form of Scarlet's Ace Custom Shinra battle armor that she personally pilots.
• Rocket Punch: While all of the MK. II weapons can independently fly, the drill gauntlets are the only ones that are used to actually fight on their own in the final phase, with Scarlet detaching them with the move "Rocket Arm". Both arms will quickly dash around the arena attempting to ram the girls.
• Shockwave Stomp: Its "Impact Eruption" attack has the mech charge up its drill gauntlets before slamming them into the ground and causing a large Area of Effect explosion.
• Shout-Out: While using its Mako Cannons, Scarlet will fire both in a spinning attack much like the Wing Gundam Zero's Rolling Buster.
• Spin Attack:
  • Its Twin Saber form has a move called "Spinning Thrust", where it dashes forward while rapidly spinning its blades.
  • “Rotating Rail Laser” has the mech outstretch both its Makocannon arms, firing its laser beams as it rotates in place.
• This Is a Drill: Its third weapon switch is now a pair of drill gauntlets that rapidly spin in place, replacing the previous sword and shield configuration. It can even slam its spinning fists into the ground for a large Area of Effect attack.
• Power Fist: The Drill Gauntlets weapons are gigantic, drill-fists that the mech uses as a deadly punching weapon.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Its Makocannon arms can still charge and fire powerful, concentrated laser beams.
• "X" Makes Anything Cool: One of its attacks is called "X-ecution". Predictably, it's a Dash Attack where it slashes its sabers in an X-pattern.

Diabolic Variant

A boss in Chapter 11. One of Hojo's experiments found in the Nibelheim reactor.

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• Master of Illusion: In Hard mode the Creation exudes purple mist that gives the illusion of multiple copies of it on top of the one it does sprout.
• Moveset Clone: Shares a lot of attacks and animations with the Diabolic Creation, with the biggest difference being that the Variant does not have the Projector to assist it. According to the access data, it literally is a clone sprouted from the Creation.
• Self-Duplication: Midway through the fight, the Variant will clone itself, forcing you to fight two. According to its access data, this is how it avoided being disposed of after the original Diabolic Creation was deemed a failure.

Yin & Yang

A two-headed boss in Chapter 11. One of Hojo's experiments found in the laboratory under the Shinra Mansion.

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• Multiple Head Case: While not in personality, one head will sleep while the other head being awake affects its attack behavior, meaning that Cait Sith has to adjust tactics.
• Was Once a Man: One of the many results of Hojo's experiments.

Forgotten Specimen

A boss in Chapter 11. One of Hojo's experiments found in the laboratory under the Shinra Mansion.

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• Adaptation Name Change: It was called "Lost Number" in the original Final Fantasy VII, but Rebirth renames it to Forgotten Specimen.
• Barrier Change Boss: It will continuously swap its resistance from physical to magic throughout the boss fight. In the last fight each half will become invulnerable to either magic or physical damage.
• Flawed Prototype: This specimen was designed to shape-shift, but the process of doing so is so unstable that it hurts itself every time it does. In the final phase it just becomes a walking piece of mako seeped biomass.

Galian Beast

A boss in Chapter 11. A monstrous form that Vincent Valentine assumes when his humanoid form isn't enough to eliminate the intruders who've disturbed his slumber.

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• Adaptation Deviation: It was never fought in the original game, as Vincent never attacked the party originally.
• Fighting from the Inside: Downplayed but implied - one of the Beast's abilities is 'Inner Turmoil' where he pauses between strings of attacks, implying Vincent is conflicted about fighting the party.
• Foreshadowing: Vincent's other monster forms don't make an appearance, but a later phase of the boss fight has red tendrils spread across the arena and the Galian Beast uses several Chaos themed attacks, a reference to Vincent's other, more powerful alter ego.
• Lightning Bruiser: Despite its immense size and strength, the Galian Beast is also among the fastest bosses in the game, even outspeeding Roche. It's this to such a degree that the game goes out of its way to pause and warn the player that a vicious battle lies ahead.
• Morphic Resonance: Even moreso than in Dirge of Cerberus, the Galian Beast retains many traits of Vincent's human form, including its claws having gold armoring in place of his gold details, belts around its limbs, and its hair is the same as Vincent's but longer and more wild, and the ends gradient to red to give the imagery of his cape.
• Mythology Gag: It ends the fight with Chaos Flare, a dual reference to the Galian Beast's Beast Flare attack in the original VII and Vincent's Chaos transformation. Its Assess intel also describes as "a creature of Chaos".
• One-Winged Angel: It serves as this for Vincent, who transforms when trying to kill Avalanche for snooping around Shinra Manor.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Most of the Galian Beast's moves consist of brutalizing the party with long combo strings of punches, claw swipes, and kicks.
• Schmuck Bait: The Assess entry for the Galian Beast advises attacking it during certain moves where it stands still to Pressure it. What the entry fails to mention is that doing so will cause Vincent to deliver an extremely fast, powerful, and wide-reaching counterattack.
• Shadow Discretion Shot: The cutscene preceding it only shows its silhouette on the wall as Vincent's body gruesomely transforms into the Galian Beast.

Red Dragon

A boss in Chapter 13. An ancient wyrm that swore allegiance to the Cetra and now guards their Temple.

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• Breath Weapon: It's a fire-breathing dragon. Its description says it has an organ on its chest that allows it to spew flames. On Normal difficulty, attacking it will cause its breath to lose some of its range, but on Hard its breath is always full-strength.
• Gravity Master: The dragon can control the gravity in its room, reorienting the perspective of the party when it wants to.
• Hellfire: Checking the Red Dragon's Assess entry will reveal that all of its fire attacks are actually non-elemental, ensuring that what's meant to be a difficult endgame boss isn't trivialized by a simple Elemental+Fire combination.
• Our Dragons Are Different: It's a fairly classic take on a dragon, being a red, fire-spewing wyrm who's able to fly and is the guardian of an ancient temple filled with lost relics.
• Schmuck Bait: On Hard difficulty, repeating the tactic from Normal of breaking the Red Dragon's chest will simply cause it to use Crimson Breath III immediately instead of after a delay.

Ironclad

A boss in Chapter 13. An iron giant that was created by Cetra to guard their temple.

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• BFS: It wields a gigantic sword that is almost as tall as it's whole body.
• Canon Foreigner: Iron Giants have been in the world, but a specific variant called Ironclad was completely absent from prior installments in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII.
• Mighty Glacier: Very slow and its attacks are very telegraphed. Get hit once and you will take more than a little damage, and its health and stagger gauge are so high, what would be the amount to stagger it when pressured is the amount regular enemies have all the time.
• Puzzle Boss: A minor variant, you must stagger the giant to destroy the tower powering it up. Don't stagger it and it comes back.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Has a huge torso and disproportionally smaller legs.

Demon Gate

A boss in Chapter 13. The final guardian of the black materia.

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• Adaptational Wimp The original Demon Wall is infamous for its massive damage and nearly untouchable magic defense. This Demon Wall lacks both of these qualities, likely to make the fight more tenable with two to deal with.
• Dual Boss: The fight begins with only one Demon Gate, but once it's brought down to half its health, another Demon Gate will pop in from the opposite wall.
• Stationary Enemy: It's stuck to the walls of the temple for the entirety of the fight.
• The Walls Are Closing In: Its Encroach move cause both walls of the temple to close in, which shrinks the area the party has to maneuver to dodge the Demon Gate's attack.

Jenova Lifeclinger

A boss in Chapter 14. A manifestation of Jenova summoned by Sephiroth in the Forgotten City.

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• Adaptation Name Change: Was simply Jenova Life in the original game, a name it retains in Japanese and other translations.
• Beam Spam: Starts firing more and more eye-lasers as the fight progresses.
• Breath Weapon: She can spit noxious bubbles from her mouth as one of her attacks.
• Death Glare: Her skeletal face is locked in a perpetual one which is punctuated even further when she gets right up in the camera's face to give the player a "lovely" view of her human-like eyes during the transition to her second phase to show just how pissed she actually is.
• Combat Tentacles: She has several bladed tentacles, including a long segmented one extending from her upper body, that she uses in combat.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The final phase begins with Cloud impaling it straight through the neck so far his blade comes out the other side.
• Metamorphosis Monster: In the first stage of her boss fight she has a Gigeresque caterpillar-like lower body formed from scraps of flesh stretched across a rib-cage and spinal column, a pair of vestigial malformed wings with several eyes, and several bladed tentacles. In her second stage, she transforms—sprouting a pair of large malformed butterfly-like wings.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Jenova Lifeclinger's elongated spinal column is inspired by its card artwork in Mobius Final Fantasy.
  • During the first phase of the battle, Jenovah Lifeclinger sends party members flying out of the arena, Much like Sephiroth begins the final battle in the original game by blowing away the party members that weren't picked for the team.
  • The penultimate phase of the fight with her serves as one to the Bizarro Sephiroth fight from the original game as it takes places on a series of platforms and has you alternate between party members as you slowly whittle the beast down by attacking its body parts.
  • In the final phase it becomes more red and uses fire based attacks, much like the later Jenova Death boss fought later in the original game.
  • As in the original, the music in the first phase of the fight is a variation of Aerith's theme, with the JENOVA theme resumed later in the fight.
• Pre-Final Boss: The last foe faced in Rebirth before the final boss.
• Stealth Insult: Two of its attacks, Mourning Wail and Lachrymal Exhale, are named so to further mock the sudden loss of Aerith.

The Final Ruler of the Outer Worlds

The final boss of Chadley's Brutal Combat Simulator. A Virtual Sephiroth recreated by Chadley to serve as the final obstacle for his combat challenges

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• Barrier Change Boss: In his later phases Virtual Sephiroth uses assorted elemental attacks like the real Sephiroth in Remake, gaining a resistance to one element while gaining a weakness to the other.
• Blade Spam: At first Virtual Sephiroth waits till he can hold all three party members until unleashing Octaslash. After a while he starts unleashing it whenever he gets the opportunity.
• Composite Character: He combines the two forms of Sephiroth faced as the Final Boss, using the sword skills of his human form and a similar method of immobilizing the party members, and the elemental attacks and affinity changes of Sephiroth Reborn.
• Continuity Nod: Crisis Core showed that simulations of Sephiroth were used to train the ranks of SOLDIER. Chadley evidently decided that pitting Cloud and the gang against a construct of his own would be a worthy test of their skills. In the final phase, his elemental magic gains new titles as he multicasts them, much like the Hell variants from the same game.
• Elemental Powers: In his final phase he switches from sword combos to elemental magic as his main offense.
• Glass Cannon: Virtual Sephiroth is an offensive monster with high speed attacks and powerful magic. His HP, stagger gauge and ability to avoid getting knocked around are much less impressive. The hard part of the fight is simply lasting long enough to land the right hits.
• Gravity Master: The first phase of the fight involves Virtual Sephiroth holding party members with Shadowy Chains to bind them in place while he prepares Octaslash. If all three are hit or the last holds out long enough he will unleash the move on the immobile party members.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: The major difference between the Virtual Sephiroth and the real one is that this simulated version has no arrogance or restraint to hold him back, no aspirations of godhood, and no personal grudge with the heroes. The result is all of Sephiroth's power and skill is focused on killing them as quickly and efficiently as possible, and defeating him requires smart preparation and precision gameplay to avoid being wiped out in seconds. This is even integrated into the interface, to an extent; Virtual Sephiroth still uses moves recognizable as Hell's Gate and Zanshin, but without the attack names being displayed over his head, which makes them harder to block or dodge.

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