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Specimen isn't the only Mako-Monster in here...
Despite Final Fantasy VII Remake being a reimagining of possibly the most popular game in the entire main series, it wouldn't be a Final Fantasy game without the inclusion of plenty of nightmarish moments, not just the odd creature that looks like they came straight from hell or even the most unhinged of conversations. After all, life wouldn't be complete without being reminded that Gaia is not the ideal world you should be living in! open/close all folders
General
- In the original game, Cloud's visions and memories triggering at random could be a slight Jump Scare but usually were never anything bad for him until around the Temple of the Ancients, basically by the time Sephiroth was actually actively manipulating him. Here? As early as mere minutes after escaping the bombing mission, he's already screwing with Cloud's mind, which is causing timeline changes to occur. For the rest of the game, Sephiroth can pop into Cloud's vision at any point he so desires, haunting his dreams and even his waking consciousness, and it results in several cases of Cloud freaking the fuck out long before it should be happening.
- Shinra in general becomes this in the grand scheme of things. They were horrific in the original game for their unethical research, Body Horror experiments either breaking loose or being weaponized, and sheer lack of morality, but the original game gave them something of a comedic fringe that made them hard to take seriously despite the sociopathic plans. Here? They're straight up insane in their ever-greedy hunt for more profit and the Promised Land, and while someone like Scarlet isn't played too seriously, Heidegger and the President are absolute bastards who see all the death and destruction as an ends to their means, little more.
Chapter 2: Fateful Encounters
- The Sector 1 bombing in the original game that was mostly glossed over as perhaps a bit chaotic? Here, Shinra intentionally destroy the core to cause as large an explosion as possible for a catastrophe so they can claim Avalanche are crazed terrorists trying to kill everyone. The President signs off on this like one would ask a secretary to get them a coffee. A couple screens of vague chaos in the original is turned into the better part of an hour having to hear people screaming in terror at the damages, highways collapsing before your eyes on populated streets, and numerous families either joining together for some vague sense of comfort or being separated with countless individuals still missing. The Shinra troops on the ground may care — but the brass simply don't have a single concern about it.
Chapter 6: Light the Way
- While traveling beneath the plate to Sector 5's Mako Reactor, our heroes have to shut down the giant sunlamps that artificially light the sector below, and Tifa is rightfully worried about that even though they'll be deactivated when the reactor blows anyway. What doesn't get enough attention drawn to it is straight up seeing gigantic pipes releasing constant amounts of blackened smoke and smog; as Barret says, they're filtering out all the bad air on the plate surfaces, and just dropping it on the people below, nonstop, 24/7. Considering the upper echelon's love for calling Avalanche "sewer rats", it's effectively considering all the people not privileged to live up high non-humans.
Chapter 7: A Trap Is Sprung
- Heidegger and the President's Evil Plan? Frame Avalanche as agents of Wutai so they can raise a patriotic fervor in the people to justify War for Fun and Profit with a nation they already thoroughly beat into complacency several years ago. They're outright causing horrific, countless casualties for the sake of making more reasons to further an explicit Bread and Circuses agenda for consolidating their authority and wealth, and only Avalanche and a small portion of the Slum denizens see through the ruse.
Chapter 11: Haunted
- The Train Graveyard is straight out of a horror movie. Before you get there, you are told that people tend to disappear there, taken by the "Black Wind". Once you arrive, it's night, you hear the disembodied voices of children, see their spectral forms running about, and glowing children's art appears on the walls around you. As you explore, it becomes apparent that some malevolent force is keeping these spirits bound here. It isn't until the Black Wind appears and makes off with Aerith that it shows its face, an Eligor.
- To make matters even worse, you will often find glowing little child-sized handprints all over walls, boxes, the floor, etc., in quite a few locations. You will also find spatters of that same glowing substance, that look uncomfortably like blood dripped on the floor. One particular area has several of both the prints and the spatters, very reminiscent of a gruesome crime scene.
Chapter 12: Fight for Survival
- The destruction of the Sector 7 itself is significantly more disturbing than in the original version. There, the upper plate section fell and landed as one contiguous piece, leaving some slim hope that at least some of the people on the upper section may have survived. Here, the plate doesn't just fall, it crumbles, meaning that instead of the slums being cleanly squished, we get to see it get graphically destroyed by massive chunks of debris.
- On the other hand, the fact that the plate didn't fall entirely in one big piece and pancake everyone and everything below means that at least some people are shown to have survived this time even if it was still a horrific incident.
- Compared to the implications of the Turks sabotaging the pillar to cause the Sector 7 plate drop in the original, here it's a mere terminal: the entirety of Midgar is genocidally disposable on a whim because it was only one step in the big plan to eventually create a Neo-Midgar. All those cheery Shinra advertisements and slogans about working together for a better future amidst industrial construction makes one realize these people are building their own thoroughly-planned gigantic tombs with a damn smile.
Chapter 16: The Belly of the Beast
- Hojo's lab. Hojo himself puts on a bit of a nightmare face as he taunts Aerith, describing how he dissected her mother's body down to its component cells. Making your way through them, you encounter various research specimens and failed experiments including some that look like they used to be people. And then you have a boss battle with Specimen H0512, which looks something like the unholy offspring of Cthulhu and King Kong, if not rivaling G-Birkin from the Resident Evil 2 (Remake) due to updated graphics. A claw for its right hand with another fang-filled mouth, while its left hand is a mass of tentacles, and to top it off, Specimen H0512 can spawn/revive H0512-OPT units that harasses the team.
Chapter 18: Destiny's Crossroads
- During the Final Boss fight against Sephiroth, he has some optional dialogue for Cloud, Tifa and Aerith. While his lines aimed at Cloud are mostly just mocking taunts and scornful call-backs, and his lines aimed at Tifa merely just treats her as an annoying obstacle that he wants out of his way, his lines to Aerith are of a far more chilling nature: "Can you not see your future?" "What hope have you?" "You cannot change it." He knows. She knows. He knows that she knows. And he's rubbing it in.
- There's a rather... disturbing bit of information that is revealed in the Material Ultimania guide book; During the ending after Cloud and Sephiroth's battle at the Edge of Creation, the scene ends with Cloud, alone, staring at a celestial body in the distance. However, looking closely at it, one notices that said body looks strangely, horrifyingly familiar. That's right, what you're looking at is Safer Sephiroth.
Episode INTERmission
Chapter 2: Covert Ops
- The trailer for Yuffie's adventure is meant to be during the time while Cloud had been separated from AVALANCHE, but the stinger has some horrible implications even in this timeline: DEEPGROUND is waking up earlier than their original timeline counterparts from the brief glimpse of Weiss the Immaculate.
- The Intermission Episode takes this a step further. All throughout the episode we have been led to believe that Yuffie and Sonon are looking for Shinra's new materia, and we are led to believe that this makes Scarlet (the head of Weapons R&D) the episode's Big Bad. Instead, after beating her mech prototype (which presumably goes on to being her Proudclod mech) she activates a trigger which awakens the Tsviets. After a series of battles in the simulator, the actual final boss of the episode is Nero the Sable, and BOY is he a tough customer!
- Not to mention, the entire episode happens concurrent to the pillar incident, so after the final battle we are treated to the destruction of Sector 7, from Yuffie's perspective - remember, she is only 16!
