This article contains major spoilers for Final Fantasy VII Remake
Unlike in the original game, main antagonist Sephiroth makes multiple appearances throughout Midgar in Final Fantasy VII Remake. However, the nature of his character left many fans confused as to whether he was really there in many scenes.
Final Fantasy VII Remake Ultimania, which was released on 28 April 2020, lists Sephiroth’s appearances in the game, and explains each one.
Also see:
- FFVII Remake: Interview with Nomura Tetsuya and Kitase Yoshinori
- FFVII Remake: Producer Kitase Yoshinori Discusses What Lead to the Remake and the Original Team’s Involvement in Development
- Safer Sephiroth, W-Materia and More: 7 Mistranslations and Other Oddities in Final Fantasy VII
Chapter 2
Both appearances of Sephiroth in chapter 2, once when Cloud sees a vision of Nibelheim and once when he meets Aerith, are illusions.
Chapter 3
The Sephiroth Cloud sees is, as shown in the game, in fact his neighbour black-robed man number 49, Marco (Marcato in the Japanese version).
Chapter 4
The voice Cloud hears when he sleeps is listed in Ultimania as a hallucination.
Chapter 8
The Sephiroth that appears before Cloud before he wakes up is an illusion.
Chapter 13
The voice Cloud hears is a recollection of a line he heard Sephiroth say before, and the voice he hears after it saying that loss will make him stronger is a hallucination.
Chapter 16
The Sephiroth that Cloud sees in the vision at the end of the Cosmos Theater presentation is an illusion. It is also stated that Barret and Tifa did not see Sephiroth, due to the vision cutting off midway for them.
The Sephiroth that Palmer sees in a corridor on the 69th floor is in fact the black-robed man number 49, Marco, who looks like Sephiroth due to the effect of Jenova cells.
When Cloud hears Sephiroth’s voice in front of the elevator on the 66th floor, this is a recollection of what he heard in Nibelheim’s reactor.
Chapter 17
The Sephiroths seen in this chapter are all black-robed men. Through the effect of Jenova cells, the other party members also start to see the black-robed men as Sephiroth from this point. Black-robed man 49 kills President Shinra and transforms into Jenova Dreamweaver (Jenova Beat in the Japanese version) while black-robed man 2 is the one who recovers Jenova’s body and jumps from the roof.
Chapter 18
The Sephiroth seen at the end of the highway before the group stops is a hallucination seen by Cloud. Every other appearance by Sephiroth after this, starting from the point where he asks them to breach the wall of fate, is labelled in the Ultimania book with a question mark, suggesting that he is not a hallucination, illusion, recollection, or black-robed man.
It is also pointed out that in his final confrontation with Cloud at the edge of time, Sephiroth uses the pronoun “ore” in Japanese, as opposed to “watashi” in all other appearances in the game. In the original Final Fantasy VII, Sephiroth only used “ore” in the Nibelheim flashback before learning the truth about his birth, and only “watashi” after. This might imply that “question mark” Sephiroth has a different personality from the post-Nibelheim antagonistic Sephiroth in FFVII, possibly closer to pre-Nibelheim Sephiroth seen in flashbacks in the original game, and in the prequel Crisis Core.
Also see:
- FFVII Remake: Interview with Nomura Tetsuya and Kitase Yoshinori
- FFVII Remake: Producer Kitase Yoshinori Discusses What Lead to the Remake and the Original Team’s Involvement in Development
- Safer Sephiroth, W-Materia and More: 7 Mistranslations and Other Oddities in Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VII Remake was released on the Playstation 4 worldwide on 10th April 2020
This article was originally published on April 29, 2020
Hey,
one thing that I have never understood but have always been really curious about: Why are there so many oversized swords in Japanese Video Games (and other Japanese fantasy based media)?
Examples include “Anime Style” Video games like Final Fantasy VII or Devil may cry, but also other fantasy games like Bloodborne or Monster Hunter.
It’s not that I don’t like those games. I am just wondering why and how this “big sword style” became almost standard for many different kinds of fantasy themed video games. (Okay, not all of them, Zelda beeing a popular counter example).
How is this connected to Japanese Culture? Does a hero with a “small sword” look like a wimp to Japanese audience? Could it be that Japanese fantasy in general is way more “aggressive”/”obvious” with their character design than western fantasy? I don’t know any western game that uses this “oversized sword” style. What does this tell us about the different approaches to fantasy between Japanese and western games?
Then of course, there is the sexual symbolism of a “man with a huge sword” which is so obvious that it can sometimes look cringy to me: Femal characters are often super sexy, male characters need muscles and a “huge sword”. (Although even female character, e.g. in Nier Automata, carry huge swords).
So big apologies if this sounds rude to any fans. I ensure you that I am on your side and also a big fan of games like FF7 or Bloodborne. I just wanted to ask this to gain more cultural understanding about those games.
Please share your theories!