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Harbinger O Great Justice
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I actually don't recall if the specific text of Zack's letter is present as readable content on the main 3 game discs – but I don't think so.
I know that the various dialogue paths with Zack's parents cover Zack having written them a letter 6-7 years ago and having a girlfriend ONLY if Aerith and/or Tifa are in the party when taking to his parents in Gongaga. If only Tifa's in the party they ask if it was her which she directly denies, whereas if Aerith is present both with or without Tifa they'll ask Aerith instead and she'll exit in disbelief. This does make everything a bit more fuzzy, but it's also worth remembering that this just left things with a lot more lingering unknowns in the original Japanese release.
There is a good bit that's worth unpacking about the timeline of all of this though:
This magazine came out in May of 1997, and the end of this particular bit is especially interesting:
"More details about the relationship between these two will be announced soon! Look forward to it!"
This is because that point in time specifically represents teasing around speculation that's happening during what's technically still mid-development – since it wouldn't be until September of 1997 when the NA version of FFVII released where Zack's entire Nibelheim Flashback sequence was added, meaning that Japanese audiences had never seen ANY of that content, nor was it as clear what that interaction was like. Also, given what we know with how rapidly the development turn-around time was back then, it's entirely possible & potentially likely that the precise details of exactly how interconnected Zack's & Aerith's relationship was wasn't fully set in stone yet.
After September, all of Zack's dialogue about going to crash at her place and then remembering that she lives with her mom, as they're both heading to Midgar before he gets killed helped to reinforce the context that it was definitely Aerith he was referring to in the letter, and their relationship wasn't as one-sided as it seemed despite Zack's absence. The International Version of FFVII was released in Japan in October of 1997 which included 4th disc (called Perfect Guide) making all of that available to the JP audience, and then the EU release would have been the month after in November of 1997.
Interestingly this bit about Zack also stands out:
While I know that Johnny's storyline involves shacking up at the house in Costa Del Sol, I don't recall anything in the original game hinting that Zack was there or that he was shacking up with anyone. HOWEVER, I'm curious if this old mention of Zack being MIA & having been seen hanging out with a girl at Costa Del Sol is what inspired the inclusion of the overtly fanservicey moment in Crisis Core that's exclusively showing both Zack & Cissnei vacationing together in swimsuits... at Costa Del Sol:
The fact that the story sets up Cissnei being the one who was responsible for running information interference on what Zack was doing, means that him being a bit of a flirt, and those rumors would easily overlap into that sort of image of him running off with some other girl and going off the grid when he's declared MIA. Given that the only information Zack's parents have is that he got a girlfriend before vanishing, that all checks out and makes for a more comfortable bit of closure – which we know that Cissnei directly is keeping eyes on in Rebirth. Thus – even if that rumor is not accurate to the reality of what happened, it WOULD be the most logical conclusion that people would jump to in-universe, which would likely reinforce the things we hear about Zack second hand by the time the events of the original game roll around, including how Aerith attempts to play off things about their relationship early on.
Related – this also reminds me of one other adjacent detail that's thus far been indirectly soft-retconned – which is that Cloud & Zack both scratched messages on their tanks to each other about escaping prior to breaking out as Cloud's health started significantly deteriorating. With only the original JP game text, this brief exchange frames the escape as something that Cloud initiates & Zack cooperates with. This plain text is one of the things that makes the details of Zack's letter to his parents and the related context from 6-7 years earlier a bit more complex with Aerith since there's nothing that connects those things.
However... 4th Disc also added more context to the text itself, since it visually shows the difference in their mental states – with Cloud's scratched writing being very shaky & uneven, compared to Zack's being much more compact & clear:
C Project, Specimen (B) Code C:
"A scratch left by a fingernail inside the beaker... 'Let's get out of here…'."
C Project, Specimen (A) Code Z:
"A scratch left by a fingernail inside the beaker... 'Feeding Time'...that's our chance...!"
Thus, post-International version both with the Flashback & Perfect Guide, it's very clear that things here were ACTUALLY Cloud's desperate plea, followed by Zack taking charge, after which he's acting on his own motives which are then shown directly during the Flashback. It's worth noting that this scenario with them scratching text to one another was still a core part of the narrative design in how those images are added to 4th Disc, even as the Zack Flashback was added with the International Version during which Cloud had already reached the point of being totally non-verbal.
Because Cloud is non-verbal & near-comatose, Zack solely being the one who's taking them both to Midgar while talking about a place where he can potentially crash before remembering that her mom lives there too provides a lot more definitive context that the letter he sent his parents is about Aerith specifically that ISN'T connected to Cloud's motives or knowing he'd find Tifa there. This flashback also helps to recontextualize the ways in which Cloud assimilates Zack's identity from that experience in ways that Aerith would recognize & respond to, which in turn would further reinforce Zack's parents being right about Aerith being his girlfriend, despite the big time gap making things really unclear for her – and thus leading to the hopeful speculation that he'd just met some other girl and gone off the grid still being valid information to undestanding the larger context of the story.
Since the scratches on the tanks are in-game prompts that existed in the original JP version, returning to where those scratches are in FFVII International starts the cinematic flashback from that point with them both in tanks, and shows Zack escaping when they're being fed, thus leading into the series of events with Zack being the driving force, and Cloud being mostly absent of any direct motivation as what's basically THE core of anything we really knew about Zack's character all the way until Crisis Core got released.
With the Compilation, we don't ever see any of Cloud's deterioration happening, nor do we get any of them having to silently communicate through the tank walls and getting a sense of one another's health that way as something that incentivizes their escape & reinforces that interdependence on one another, nor is it shown if they really have any clear sense of the passage of time during this period. Instead, what we get is directly a match to the start of the FFVII International flashback presentation as its starting point, that earlier part of the scenario in Crisis Core starts with the escape already happening and doesn't really contextualize the timing as being something that Zack & Cloud overtly planned out with one another during the time prior.
This means that there's no sense of understanding how long it's been or what's been happening until Zack finds Aerith's final letter – thus leaving BOTH of them to try and figure out fragmented context about one another solely through the final letter that gets left behind by the other, thus leading to the added complexity about their relationship during the massive gap. This is one reason why I am rather curious if the Remake Project will ever end up covering that period of time when they're in the tanks together, because seeing when Cloud starts slipping away from being himself IS still a catalyst for them actually breaking out – it's one that's more directly a part of the story of Cloud's fragmented identity that works better in Cloud's narrative, and less so in a story about Zack's side of things – which Rebirth has continued to expand upon.
While FFVII Rebirth doesn't have prompts to look for any scratches of messages on the tanks when in the Shinra Manor, Cloud's mental struggles get triggered in the general proximity very similar to where the Zack Flashback kicks off, so it's not clear if that's something that will get covered directly, since that whole area gets closed off from being revisited. We won't make it back until Part 3 to know just how much of that pre-escape content is still something that the story will cover, or if'll remain in that soft-retcon territory.
What's interesting is that FFVII Remake actually does hint at little fragments of that when Cloud's memory of being used as a human experiment and buried away in a basement gets triggered in Chapter 13, meaning that it's not definitively something that's been retconned, but that it just hasn't been focused on yet.
Mainly though, this part of the narrative in the Remake Project hinges REALLY heavily on needing to establish a lot of information about Zack's character FIRST, since the flashback here represents an overt disconnect where Cloud isn't the one with the guiding motivation to push things forward, but instead Zack is the driving force – and that's JUST BARELY starting to happen in the story near the end of Rebirth. So, there's a lot of identity overlap that's been messy since the original game – even before the characterization of Zack was more clearly defined by exploring the bits that were particularly fragmented in the original Japanese release.
Overall, there's a LOT in how this whole sequence was developed & updated over time that provide key details around the context & motive for both Cloud's & Zack's characters and how that ties into the little fragments of information about both of them that are scattered around throughout the game, especially in the nature of the relationship that Cloud forms with both Tifa & Aerith after he stumbles into Midgar. Zack's death scene in particular REALLY heavily creates context about the start of the game and how that informs players about the nature of those relationships that's really different than how flexible the interpretations would be without that in the original JP version when this magazine was released – but in turn, these little tidbits from an old magazine provide an interesting way to look at how certain details were included in Crisis Core, Remake, & Rebirth as a means of consistently expanding around these general details about Zack's character (and also why I expect that Crisis Core Reunion was released before part 3).
It's why things like the time when only the original version had been released and the International version was still in-development are such an interesting lens into a point in time, as it's also handy in looking at the ways in which the revisiting of that storytelling is covering that same ground a little bit differently in the Remake Project, as well as how that initially got its refreshes of the Compilation content with Crisis Core focused on emphasizing overt motivation into Zack's incentive to get back to Midgar for Aerith. Using things like Aerith writing 88 letters to Zack as an echo for Zack writing a letter about her, (especially with the Crisis Core Reunion Hero Edition literally coming with Aerith's final letter) still emphasize those same particular narrative devices on where to look based on what players had to rely on, and also knowing that the letters weren't the whole story, but they were what people in-universe were basing their perceptions from.
It's neat to see these little elements of design & details that the games have been using for reinforcing their story over the years that still have roots back in these little updates that were included to clarify & emphasize particular story details that weren't as definitive in the original JP version of the game, especially BECAUSE of things like these magazines being the nexus of that conversation & information in Japan at the time.
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