Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here, and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
- Final Fantasy VII
- Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
- Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus
- Final Fantasy VII Remake
- Angeal's death and him giving Zack the Buster Sword. Zack is so distraught that he cries in Aerith's church, and she has to comfort him. The instrumental version of "Why" playing in the background amplifies the heartbreak.
- Zack being betrayed by all of his former allies or watching the loyal ones die is tragic enough. But at one point, he tries returning home to see his parents for possibly the last time but ultimately doesn’t see them, not wanting them to be killed by Shinra troops for associating with him. Despite praying for his return, Zack's parents never knew their boy saved their lives during his final days by not coming home. As a last request, Zack asks Cissnei to look after them.
- The fact Aerith wrote dozens of letters (88 letters to be exact) to Zack during his four-year absence due to being experimented on by Hojo. Even after years of unknown absence, she still hoped she would see her boyfriend again, even though Zack would never be able to read her other letters or see her again.
- Zack wakes after the four-year time jump. In Shinra Manor, Zack sees a vision of Angeal and says how he also wants wings like Angeal's. Seeing his mentor again enables Zack to break free and escape with Cloud; it's a poetic callback to Zack's scene with Cissnei on Loveless Avenue.Cissnei: Wings symbolize freedom for those who have none.
- The infamous ending sequence, represented in gameplay, for the most part, is a shining example of gameplay/cutscene integration. Zack charges into battle with the entire Shinra army and starts fighting for his life. As he slowly gets whittled down by the constant barrage, he starts to flag physically and mentally; after a while, Zack is covered in blood (unfortunately his own) and is so weak he can barely swing his blade. As this happens, the Digital Mind Wave breaks down with his body and starts showing him flashbacks of the moments he shared with his friends he's made and lost until both Zack and the DMW completely give out. And as Zack is almost dead, the malfunctioning DMW focuses one last time... on Aerith, and the last memory it shows is of her before it completely shuts off. Cloud crawls to his side, hears his final words, takes the Buster Sword, and continues his legacy, while back in Midgar, Aerith senses Zack's passing and silently lowers her head in prayer.Zack: My honor... My dreams... They're yours now. You'll be... My living legacy.
- Just the fact that you, the player, who's spent the entire game growing attached to Zack, has to play this section of the game. And no matter how strong you are, no matter how many elixirs you've collected, no matter how good your Materia setup is, Zack IS going to die, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.
- Then there's "The Price of Freedom" playing in the background during the battle, only amplifying the disbelief of Zack's mind breaking down slowly, as shown through the DMW.
- Angeal reappears to Zack and helps start his journey back to the planet. It's very poetic as Zack told Angeal that he had angel wings earlier in the game, and now, at the end of his former pupil's life, Angeal returns to Zack as a real one and brings him into heaven.Zack: Those wings... I want them too.
- What about "If you see Aerith, say hi for me... Hey, would you say I became a hero?" Worsened by the fact that since Cloud pretends to be Zack to cope with his death, and Aerith dies before he's healed, he never gets the chance to tell her Zack's dying words.
- Zack's last words in the whole game are equally tragic and uplifting:Zack: Hey, would you say I became a hero?
- Cloud is screaming in despair when the first thing he sees after breaking out of his catatonia is his first real friend dying. He then says, "Goodnight, Zack." and walks away in misery. The ending is depressing as hell.
- Especially if you consider what he says before, "I won't forget," when you consider that he did. Even worse, by the time he gets to Midgar, the Mako poisoning, mind-control, and sheer emotional and physical trauma have almost completely shattered his mind, and, to cope, he does forget everything about Zack and steals his identity. He took Zack's last words too literally, and no one, no one, could truly help him at that point, not even Tifa. The illusion continues for most of Final Fantasy VII.
- A retroactive one once the Nibelheim Incident is all well and done with: Sephiroth, who has been Zack's friend, idol, and ally, as well as friend of other characters, finally goes insane. It makes Zack's anguished declaration of betrayal that much more poignant.
- Really, the state of the FFVII world falls into this throughout the game. SOLDIER gets slowly destroyed, reduced to a shell of its former self as Genesis, Angeal, Lazard, Sephiroth, and ultimately, Zack leave. They go from the heroes of the Wutai War to glorified grunts as a result. Banora, Modeoheim, and Nibelheim are all destroyed, though Shinra rebuilds Nibelheim to cover up the incident.
- Sephiroth's descent into madness, which this game covers in greater detail, was far more complicated and somewhat more sympathetic than the original FFVII showed. It wasn't just Nibelheim and learning of his origins that broke Sephiroth; before then, he was relatively friendless, with only Angeal and Genesis for support (being fellow experiments themselves). After unintentionally injuring Genesis (starting Genesis's degradation), it all unravels from there—Genesis goes missing, and Angeal goes rogue, leaving him completely alone and torn between his loyalties to SOLDIER and those he considered friends. Eventually, he contemplates retirement..., and then Nibelheim happens, and nobody is there for him except his newfound 'Mother'. It didn't help upon learning that he was a "monster" because of the Mako Infusion, like the Makanoids; and Genesis coming in only made things worse, causing Sephiroth to question his humanity even further. Nibelheim wasn't the start of his lunacy; it was only the tipping point.
- Being friendless before Angeal and Genesis needs emphasis. He wasn't just friendless. Recall from the original game's flashback that he told "Cloud" that he always felt different from others, perhaps even higher than others. It's not only his insanity that didn't come out of nowhere, but his god complex, i.e. his sense that he was superior to everyone else. Meeting Angeal and Genesis were the one thing that could have potentially stopped that in its tracks, and even then, it didn't fully stop the feeling that he was different, however, since Genesis was still envious of him. And then finding out what they were...and that he was no different. Genesis and Angeal should have been the indication that he could be a normal person too, but they both just became further reminders that he was anything but normal.
- In Banora, upon finding Gillian Hewley's body. After that, Angeal leaves, the clincher being the sad look on Genesis's face before he states, "We are monsters. We have neither dreams nor honor."
- One of the missions Zack takes has him stopping the efforts of a lesser Shinra employee trying to bring the company down. Why was that person doing this? They came to understand how evil Shinra was. Some foreshadowing for what would happen to Cloud and Zack.
- Zack's reaction to seeing the Angeal Copy from Aerith's church in Banora that died helping Lazard protect Cloud from Shinra and Lazard's death shortly after. The last two Angeal copies' deaths hit harder with the knowledge that Lazard inherited Angeal's desires (help Zack, save Genesis, and save the world) and the theory that Angeal controlled Lazard and the canine copy from within the lifestream to carry out his will. Even in death, Angeal wanted to keep helping Zack.
- Genesis finally meets the goddess. He gladly waits for her to bestow her gift upon him, but she silently closes her eyes in rejection. As we see Genesis looking rejected, Minerva sends him away without a word. Representing the lifestream's will, Minerva sees Genesis's desire to complete his SOLDIER duty and be a hero, so she prevents him from returning to the planet. Through his final battle with Zack and his encounter with Minerva, Genesis realizes the true 'gift of the goddess' is his SOLDIER pride, which the fight had restored. He wistfully tells Angeal (through the now-dead Lazard) that his childhood dream of him, Angeal, and Sephiroth eating Banora White apples together has come true.
- A bit of Fridge Logic in here. Factoring what we know about Cloud in Final Fantasy VII, his life before meeting Zack was... Not ideal. He wasn't popular in Nibelheim (aside from Tifa), being widely regarded as an idiot brat who nearly got the mayor's daughter killed, so he went to Midgar to become a SOLDIER but failed and became a lowly security grunt. Then he met Zack and got his spirit lifted, bonding over being from backwater towns. Then comes the Nibelheim Incident, where his village gets torched by Sephiroth, who everyone considered a legend (Crisis Core made sure you know Sephiroth well deserved this title). Not only was Cloud's world crushed once there, but then Hojo decides to experiment on him and Zack, causing the former to get Mako poisoning. He's utterly lethargic for the entirety of Zack's voyage to Midgar. When Cloud could move again, he saw Zack leaving him, sometime later saw Zack bathing in his blood, then one minute later, Cloud inherited Zack's sword and legacy. Cloud was there, and he couldn't do anything to help his best friend; Cloud's Death Wail is an on-point reaction, and it comes less as a surprise that he pretends to be Zack—too much happening too fast is not the best way to keep your mental integrity intact.
- Sheer case of Dramatic Irony at the end of the first visit to the Nibel reactor. Cloud, recall, was the sole surviving Shinra grunt from the journey. Meaning he's the one that tried to protect Tifa from Copy attacks, but got knocked unconscious, though his helmet stayed on. The entire journey down the mountain is Tifa fireman carrying him back to town, completely unaware that the boy she pined for ever since that night on the water tower, the boy she hoped was among the otherwise-unimpressive-to-her SOLDIER entourage visiting her town, and the sole reason she dressed up in her fancy cowgirl getup, was the grunt who got knocked on his ass trying to protect her, that she carried down from the mountain, and expressed worry over. They were sadly separated by the fact his helmet never came off, and yet were so close to each other.
- One of Tseng's DMW cutscenes show Zack paying his respects to Essai and Sebastian, the two SOLDIER members who died after Fuhito forcibly converted them into Ravens.
