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Note: This article contains spoilers for Final Fantasy 7 Remake and the original FF7, so continue at your own risk if you haven’t finished them!
Although Final Fantasy 7 Remake has the word “remake” in the title, it’s more of an adaptation of the Midgar part of the original FF7 story than a direct retelling. Because the new game takes some liberties with the old one, it’s filled with moments that reinvent elements of the original, while creating new jokes, references, and Easter eggs based on the 1997 game. The result is a slightly different from what fans remember, but it pays homage to a classic.
We’ve compiled a ton of Easter Eggs, Referrals, Callbacks, and Jokes found in Final Fantasy 7 Remake below, but there are many, many more. Leave your favorites in the comments below.
1. A Nibel from Nibelheim
FF7 Remake brings some elements from later in the history of FF7 to the forefront, such as Cloud’s visions. In the original game, when he approaches Reactor 1 to drop the bomb, Cloud hears a voice warning, “Watch out. This is not just a reactor.” In the remake, that moment (and a few more) includes memories of Cloud’s younger life in the town of Nibelheim. We also see flashes of him growing up with Tifa and telling him he’s going to SOLDIER, as seen in the original.
2. My heart is in Correl
Although you do spend a lot of time with Barret in FF7 Remake, the game doesn’t include much information about his background, or that big gun attached to his arm. However, there are subtle winks in Barret’s backstory throughout the game. When we find the Avalanche leader arguing with Shinra employees on the Sector 7 train in Chapter 2, a version of the Correl Theme, the music from Barret’s hometown, plays in the background. It is an allusion to Barret’s history with the company and how he lost that hand, something that does not appear until later in the story.
3. Relax and save
There are no save points in the remake, unlike the original game. However, you’ll find handy park benches scattered throughout the game that restore your HP and MP. As they play a similar role, each is adorned with the save point icon of the first FF7.
4. Here’s Johnny!
Midgar Slums’ dumbest boy, Johnny, is also a character in the original game, though his new incarnation has a better comic moment. In 1997’s FF7, Johnny and his family lived next door to Tifa’s Seventh Heaven, and they are dressed the same way. In the new version, you can spend a lot of time with Johnny if you want, and even have some weird conversations with his father at Wall Market.
5. Seventh 32-bit heaven
Look closely at Tifa’s bar wall in the remake and you can find a photo of the interior of the same location from the original game, in all its pre-rendered glory.
6. Change of dress
Complete enough side quests with Tifa in Chapter 3 and you will unlock an event called “Discovery: Alone at Last”, which offers you a special scene with Tifa. Visit her in her apartment and you’ll see a pair of cowboy boots that closely resemble the ones she wore in Nibelheim flashbacks, both in the original game and in the remake.
7. Substitute Princess
In Chapter 4, you have a chance to visit Jessie’s house, but while everyone else is enjoying pizza, Cloud has to sneak up on his back. While hanging around, you can find a letter Jessie sent to her parents telling them that she was chosen for a play at the Gold Saucer. Cloud comments out loud: “Jessie Rasberry as … The Princess?” In the original game, you were involved in that play when you visited the Gold Saucer, with Yuffie playing the role of Jessie.
8. Slide Reactor
As you go through Reactor 5, Tifa suggests sliding down some pipes to reach Mako Storage. It sounds like a novel idea (if it’s dangerous), but it’s actually a callback to the original game’s Reactor 5 mission, which also saw the team slide down some pipes.
9. Everything in time
Opening the security door on the Sector 5 Reactor, Cloud, Barret, and Tifa attempt to launch levers at the same time. The moment is a direct nod to a timing minigame in the original in the same section.
10. Some matter
Cloud meets Aerith in the same way as in the original when he plummets through the roof of his church and lands on his flowerbed. During the encounter, Aerith mentions the Matter that she keeps tied on her ribbon. When he mentions it, Cloud has a brief glimpse of an original game scene of that same Matter in the City of the Ancients, a hint of the plot twists to come.
11. Improvised weapon
Many weapons and items also appeared in the original game in FF7 Remake, but some appear in a new capacity. The Nail Bat you get in the original is a powerful weapon but with significant drawbacks, including the lack of Materia grooves. In the remake, the weapon appears much earlier, in Sector 5: the craving of children from the slums of Sector 5, who brandished it on patrols to confront monsters (and then replaced it with wooden imitations of Buster Sword )) But in the remake, the Nail Bat is actually a weapon you can use throughout the game, with slots and Materia perks that make it quite useful.
12. Look down
Just like in the original, his escape from the church with Aerith involves dropping things from the roof onto Shinra’s unsuspecting troops below, though this time not in the same gamified way.
13. Great Minds Mosey
When you walk out of the Sector 5 church to cross the rooftops with Aerith, she asks, “Should we hang out?” This has to be a nod to one of Cloud’s most famous lines in the original: “Let’s mosey.” Cid blames him, but in the new version, Cloud throwing the word “mosey” in preparation for a battle would make sense as a callback to Aerith.
14. Sneaky Sneaky
Final Fantasy 7 Remake renews several minor moments and mini-games from the original, like sneaking out of Aerith’s house. In the new version, you should avoid colliding with objects and making noise that would alert Aerith, while in the original, moving faster than a walk could make you hear her footsteps and come investigate.
15. An extremely dangerous goods store
Stop by Wall Market and the automated item store can confuse you, where you’re supposed to get any item you want, for a fee. When you try to use it, a gun descends from the ceiling and tries to shoot Cloud. That same “prank” item store is in the original, and returning to it later in the game is the only way to get Tifa’s ultimate weapon. We’ll have to wait and see if they ever fix that wiring in one of the next remake entries.
16. Strike A Pose
Most combat encounters end with the team doing their business, perhaps engaging in a small prank. That is not the case in the Coliseum of Corneo, where you will see the special animations of your group when they are victorious. Cloud turns his sword over his head, Tifa stretches, Barret throws a fist in the air, and Aerith smoothes her dress, all victory animations from the original game. And while the victory’s fanfare music from the original usually doesn’t play on FF7 Remake, Barret often fills up singing the song himself.
17. Extreme Makeover: Hell Home Edition
Many monsters from the original game end with a slightly different twist in the remake. Hell House was one of the strangest enemies in 1997, and makes a special comeback in the remake with a flourish. Given how difficult it is to get more than a ramshackle shack in the slums, it makes sense to catch unsuspecting victims with a murderous house. Maybe this was one of Hojo’s robotic creations?
18. Wall to wall references
Almost everything in Wall Market is a callback to the same location in the original game, but even the side quest structure is a tribute. Several of them reflect the steps he took to dress Cloud to infiltrate Don Corneo’s mansion. In “The Party Lasts All Night”, you run errands for the local dressmaker, which is what it took to get a Cloud dress in the original. Winning a squat at the gym earned Cloud a wig in 1997.
19. Those are some specific threats
While many of the things about meeting Don Corneo have changed, one thing is taken directly from the first game. Tifa, Aerith, and Cloud’s various threats to Don Corneo’s private parts are all lines used in the original script.
20. Lost in the cemetery
In the Chapter 11 Train Cemetery, you will face the Ghoul, a brand new boss. But just like the House of Hell, there is a returning enemy that has been renewed: Eligor is another lesser enemy encounter than the original that received the full boss fight treatment.
21. That was a very rude thing to do
As Cloud and Tifa climb the pillar of Sector 7 in Chapter 12, Reno lines up a shot in Tifa with the machine gun of his helicopter. At the last minute, Rude deflects the helicopter, causing Reno to lose his shot. The remake doesn’t explain Rude’s behavior, but we know the reason for the original. During the Gongaga section of FF7, we discover that Rude has been falling in love with Tifa, enough to save her life.
22. Only Sith deals on absolutely out of place cameos
During the Sector 7 plaque collapse scene, we briefly see a strange cat with a view of the devastation. That would be Cait Sith from the original, a character the remake has only indirectly introduced so far. In the original, the luxurious Cait Sith is controlled by Shinra’s executive Reeve; here we received a provocation from Cait Sith after seeing Reeve try and not stop Shinra’s plan to drop the plate multiple times from his position on the board.
23. A Kalm before the storm
In the original game, depending on how you treated and responded to certain characters, you would end up on a date with Barret, Tifa, Aerith or Yuffie when you visit the Gold Saucer. While you haven’t visited the Gold Saucer in the remake yet, there’s a much darker version of the concept in Chapter 14. Depending on your actions throughout the game and how you choose to respond to Aerith and Tifa, you’re treated to a scene ( mostly sad) with one of them. Options that show a cold attitude towards the two women give you a scene with Barret.
24. Leslie Knopes outside Midgar
Leslie, a new character in the remake, initially warns Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa of the danger of interacting with Don Corneo. Eventually, it is revealed that Leslie is helping because she is seeking revenge against Corneo after Leslie’s girlfriend was chosen to be one of his consort. In the original, the next time you see Don Corneo in history is if you decide to go visit Wutai. Is that when we will see Leslie next, still hunting down the slum lord?
25. Fight of the Valkyrie
Chapter 15 sees him ascend the Sector 7 Plate collapsed in the remake, before facing a Shinra weapon called Valkyrie, a flying machine with two machine guns and a drill for a butt. In the original, you only fight this machine in the second half of the boss fight against Arsenal (which appears in Chapter 17 in the new version). Although it appears to be out of order, we are glad that the Valkyrie has returned in some form.
26. Stairway to (Seventh) Heaven
Just like the original, you can sneak into the upper levels of Shinra’s headquarters by going up the stairs or, on Barret’s advice, taking the elevator to go full speed (and with much less cardio). The remake elevator ride even features some battles with Shinra’s troops like FF7 did in 1997, but the main difference between the two options is the moments of dialogue and history you get in each. And this time there is no elixir in the middle of the stairs, unfortunately.
27. I will never let you go
During the guided tour of Shinra’s history, Barret makes a comment about never trusting Shinra, while looking at his weapon. Like Corel’s topic in Chapter 4, this is another allusion to Barret’s backstory and how he ended up using a weapon for a prosthesis, which appears later in the original, but has not yet been covered in the Remake.
28. City of angels
As the characters learn about Shinra’s goals in the Entertainment Hall in Chapter 16, the section covering the Ancients shows a snippet of what could well be The City of the Ancients, with the architecture resembling the design. shaped like a seashell that had the location in the original game
29. Nanaki, The Big Red Lab-Rat-Dog
When the team meets Red XIII in Chapter 16, Tifa asks what his real name is, rather than the designation he got from Hojo. Red responds by bowing his head, embarrassed that he has strayed so far from his old life. Cloud changes the subject, but if they hadn’t advanced so quickly, Red could have revealed his Christian name from his hometown in Cosmo Canyon, Nanaki. Enjoy being called “Red” for the rest of the game, you idiot.
30. “Hey, what if we turned Swordipede into a boss fight?”
Another enemy found in a random battle has received a makeover: Swordipede. What was once an enemy that could be knocked down with a pair of Lightning spells now takes on the five members of your party in one of the coldest encounters in Chapter 17.
31. A long time ago, in a promised land far, far away
In the original game, after rescuing Aerith, Cloud and the gang are captured by Reno and Rude before they can escape Shinra’s headquarters, and they are thrown into the jail cells. To progress through the story, you must have conversations with Aerith, Tifa, Red XIII and Barret. Instead, for the remake, Cloud wakes up in the room where Aerith grew up, and shares a similar story about her heritage as an Elder in a nod to the original scene.
32. PHS Responds
To get through Hojo’s research lab, The Drum, you must use scattered communication machines with the PHS name written on them. These allow you to switch control between Cloud and Barret in one section of the lab, and Aerith and Tifa in another. In the original, you used the PHS device to swap your group members on and off at save points.
33. The best man of the company man
Like the original, Rufus fights Cloud with his faithful companion, Darkstar, when he appears in Chapter 17. Rufus also comes out of the fight grabbing a passing helicopter with one hand. Classic Rufus, am I right? No, literally, it’s the classic Rufus.
34. Come back, Flashback, you don’t know me like that
At various points, but especially chapters 16, 17, and 18, your characters will receive glimpses of the future. In them, you will see scenes that are taken photo by photo of the original game and the sequel to Final Fantasy 7 CGI Advent Children, remade in the remake engine. For example, a flash shows Meteor plummeting toward Midgar amidst a red sky, creating tornadoes in the city. Another shows Red XIII running with two puppies at his side. Yet another shows Cloud in a pool of water. You can also briefly watch a scene from the introduction to Advent Children when Cloud jumps towards Sephiroth. Based on how the game ends, no one knows if these scenes will be repeated in more installments of FF7 Remake.
35. “What a crew”
At the end of Chapter 17, the team is stopped by Heidegger and a group of Shinra soldiers, where Barret, Aerith, and Red give a hilarious introduction to their identities. The essence of the scene is the same in the original, although the details are slightly different. In the first FF7, it is Rufus who asks: “By the way, who are you?” with each group member describing themselves in response. It is one of the first moments that reiterates what team of rags you have assembled.
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