10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Final Fantasy VII

4. There Was Originally A Quest To Revive Aerith

It's one of the biggest and most memorable scenes in gaming; the plot twist at the end of Disc 1 which ends with Aerith meeting an early grave is a huge shock, giving the party's quest to defeat Sephiroth a bigger emotional cause. Nowadays, Aerith's death has reached a Sixth Sense level of infamy; it's the plot twist everybody knows about, even if they've never touched the game. Naturally, everybody decided to try and find a way to revive Aerith. After all, prior to her death, she's a key member of the party with high magic stats; she was probably most people's go-to healer. For years, various rumours have popped up, outlining ways to bring Aerith back to life, some with photo or video evidence. These are, of course, all complete nonsense. That's not to say that it was always impossible to revive Aerith though. There's no definitive proof but various unused content on the game disc seems to indicate that you could revive Aerith. She has unique dialogue for scenes on Disc 2 and 3, available to view if the player uses cheats to place her in the party post-death. There is also a Game Over screen which shows Aerith near the Highwind (even though you acquire it after her death) and, for a brief moment, her ghost appears in her church when you return to Midgar. The debate rages as to whether this is an intentional appearance or not but many agree that she is supposed to appear here as an easter egg of sorts. Of course, anything associated with a quest to revive Aerith relies heavily on rumour and guesswork. Still, specifically in regard to her post-death dialogue, it's easy to infer that at some point in development, Aerith was supposed to live on. However, perhaps due to how significant a role she plays in death, Square simply opted to keep her dead; a decision that, in the long run, made a huge impact on gaming in general.