FFVII Character Details, Easter Eggs, and General What-the-fuckery

[Ite]

It is a special ink! A magic ink. They get it from beachplugs, those cephalopods on the shorelines. It dyes the roots of the hair follicles. It's especially popular with punks in the Sector 2 Slums!

And it is magic, so it never needs reapplication, not even after 500 years, apparently.

/crazy rambling

EDIT: Actually, looking at that image from AC, it actually does look like it is bare skin.

 

[Shademp]

Even when frame-advancing through Nanaki's sections in Advent Children, I can't tell for sure if his tattoos are on bare skin or not. Either way, it is indeed strange that the tattoos are still there (especially the XIII one, since I don't see why he would ever want it re-applied) after 500 years.

 

[ForceStealer]

I figured the XIII one, at least, is a brand rather than a tattoo, and that it is indeed bare skin there

 

[Lex]

It does almost look like it's skin in the second image. And the brand thing makes sense all over now that I think about it, the hair doesn't seem to grow where the "tattooed" parts are. If they'd been burned on, that would make sense.

 

[Shademp]

EASTER EGG TIME!

In the Ghost Square, by holding down X (confirm) + L1 + R1, you will make one of the bats fly towards the screen. The bat will stay in that area for as long as you hold down these buttons.

Thanks to Sega Chief for this discovery. It should also be noted that the bat will perform this animation randomly, without any button input. This happens when a random value is set to be above 240. The selected value can be in the range of 0 to 255.

 

[RedFFWolf]

Wow, that find threw me for a loop, Shademp - in a good way, of course
It's the kind of thing you could still so easily miss after so many playthroughs. I wonder what else there could be potentially...

 

[SirVival]

Inspired by the newest contribution on the website I felt like asking some questions, which may have been already asked elsewhere. These things have been buggering me since the childhood, but as the time went by, I forgot about them.

1) What's the purpose of the angel statue in the Nibelheim Reactor? You know, the one Sephiroth rips off to reveal Jenova? I mean it must have somekind of conventional purpose (seeing all the pipes and shit), but it's also sculpted to this form.. Knowledge or thoughts on this?

2) The final boss battle. I'm pretty sure this one has been answered elsewhere, but "Bizarro Sephiroth"? How or why did he reform in to this shape? Was this caused by Mako/Lifestream? What is this thing actually..

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Those are good questions.

1) What's the purpose of the angel statue in the Nibelheim Reactor? You know, the one Sephiroth rips off to reveal Jenova? I mean it must have somekind of conventional purpose (seeing all the pipes and shit), but it's also sculpted to this form.. Knowledge or thoughts on this?

Nomura's writing (or maybe it's Naora?) on one of the sketches of this thing may offer some insight, but it's hard as shit to make out his handwriting, especially the kanji. I can make out some obvious stuff like ハーネス ("harness") for the statue's "hair" and what looks like メインパイプ・接続部 ("main pipe attachment component") near the bottom, but nothing useful.

I think I see the kanji for "wings" (&#32764. It seems to say 翼Aパーツ ("Wing A Parts"?) for the large wings and 翼Bパーツ for the smaller ones. I see the word パイプ ("pipe") in there a couple times for the Wing A description, and the word ジョイント ("joint") under Wing B.

Actually, I think I can infer what the Wing B description is saying -- something to the effect of "Connects to the Wing A Parts at the joint"?

In the small illustration to the left, I think I see 背中へコードで接続 ("cord connects to the back") and 背中の受けパーツ ("receptacle parts on the back").

So, yeah, nothing too useful here.

The Crisis Core Complete Guide's Keyword section isn't much more helpful:

"Jenova Doll
A metallic likeness of Jenova that was placed in front of her at the Nibel Mako Reactor, which Sephiroth destroys during the game. The details of how it functioned are unknown, but it is assumed that it helped to process and filter the sucked-up Lifestream."

2) The final boss battle. I'm pretty sure this one has been answered elsewhere, but "Bizarro Sephiroth"? How or why did he reform in to this shape? Was this caused by Mako/Lifestream? What is this thing actually..

"Bizarro" is a mistranslation of リバース. This could be transliterated as either "Rebirth" or "Reverse." The translators went with the latter, which they then localized as "Bizarro."

Obviously, it should be "Rebirth," as that's what is happening here. "Birth of a God" and all that (the song that plays for the battle). Sephiroth is being reborn into Safer Sephiroth, and you can actually see Safer Sephiroth emerging from this pupa-like thing that is Bizarro Seph. This is more obvious in the concept art.

 

[Ravynne Nevyrmore]

So here's a question I've been meaning to ask for a very long time...

Does Nanaki's tattoos make any sense whatsoever?

Real question: Why is Hojo so skilled with a tattoo gun?

Was there a part time job in college, or?

 

[koolaidman]

Something I noticed while replaying the game on the PS4. I'm sure someone mentioned this at one point or another but just in case....

Does anyone else always find this line out of place like I do? This takes place while inside the Northern Cave on disc 2 (TRNAD_51), when Cloud goes crazy.

Tifa:
No, don't!!! Please! Stop Cloud!

Cloud:
Thanks. ......leave the rest to me

Come on. The Black Materia...
Please wait! Just a little longer!!

The line "Please wait! Just a little longer!!" sounds like a translation of a debug leftover that was accidentally left in the game. There are other similar unflagged lines in multiple areas according to Shademp's articles. It's placement on the screen is also very weird too:

In fact, this map has quite a fair bit of unused stuff in it. I wonder if this was one of the last things worked on and someone forgot to clean up the scene near the end of development?

 

[The Blue Bandit]

I've been playing through FF7 for the first time in many years, and I was reminded recently of a scene that I've always found really funny. I'm not sure if it was an intentional joke by the original writers or something that's just funny because of how it was translated, but...

After the Sector 7 plate falls, Cloud runs south out of the playground on his own. Tifa and Barret follow soon after, they talk briefly, and Cloud has one of his little "episodes". It ends with Barret saying "Pull it together, man!"

Then Tifa and Barret both proceed to walk into Cloud.

Maybe it's silly of me, but that's always made me laugh to myself.

 

[leadmyskeptic]

This isn't exactly a juicy one, but the first maybe 5 or 6 times I played the game, my buggy never broke down outside Cosmo Canyon, because I just instinctively parked before getting close enough for it to happen automatically. The first time I drove all the way up and heard that "Ka-PLOO!!" and saw the smoke coming out of it, I thought I had made some sort of a terrible mistake. Mostly you just miss a bit of extraneous dialogue, and of course the ostensible reason you have to 'stay' in the Canyon, but if I remember correctly, you do get some different dialogue with the Mechanic etc, since he's not talkin' about fixin' up your excessively random method of transportation.

In general, the uniqueness (and seeming rarity) of vehicles in FF7 is kinda strange, actually...it's been mentioned many times how Rufus' "need" for the Tiny Bronco is pretty random, but the fact that Dio owns some sort of Rocket Buggy (where does he keep it? Does he have other cars stocked up somewhere like the stuff in his show room, or did he give you his only whip?), and the fact that he feels that giving it to you is the way to make amends for throwing you without a trial into his rape desert is just...odd.

 

[ForceStealer]

It was a couple playthroughs before my buggy broke down too.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

^Absolute Steve confirmed that it is the distance to Cosmo Canyon that determines if the buggy breaks down or not. If you're trying to fight all the Fort Condor battles, you need to not have the buggy break down as it's only available during the time at Cosmo Canyon.

 

[ForceStealer]

I've found that you kinda have to drive a little bit "past" Cosmo Canyon to trigger it, I'm surprised people ever hit it, honestly. In subsequent playthroughs I make myself go far enough for it to happen when normally I'd get out before then.

 

[Lex]

I think my buggy broke down the first time because I clocked Nibelheim in the background (my brain went omg that's got to be those mountains from the flashback, I want to go there, it must be Nibelheim), but the second time I was ready for it and parked before it could break down XD.

 

[leadmyskeptic]

Interesting, guys! I know this is way too small a thing to ever devote this much time too, but I'd almost be curious to see the "stats" on how many people broke down the first time, versus who didn't. I always assumed after the fact that almost everybody did and I had just made a mistake, since it's part of the "narrative", in a way.

 

[leadmyskeptic]

Unrelated addition: Okay, so Shinra Manager is awesome, and like Johnny, is one of my favorite "You can totally overlook this dude but he's there, throughout the game, pissing and moaning" characters (a grand FF tradition, really). But...why are they sending him around?? What is he 'managing'? Shouldn't he just be in the Shinra Building? What could he possibly be 'managing' in Costa Del Sol? Why is he wearing a MAROON suit (or is this a Japanese tradition I just don't know about?). His unused appearance at the Honeybee Inn actually makes the most 'sense', so to speak, after his initial appearance riding the last train of the night and complaining about our heroes' grungy presence. In those first 2 examples, we see an underpaid and overworked employee taking the shitty dangerous train to commute (who hasn't been there?), and then later tryina' blow off a little steam at a whorehouse before he's unexpectedly interrupted by the head of the Space Program, who tears him a new one (again, who hasn't been...eh, nevermind). In Junon, he's apparently living there in that shite barracks, although again, I don't think he ever says what he's doing there, living with soldiers...or maybe he's a sort of a Presidential Aide, where he has to travel where the new Pres goes to serve in some sort of 'corporate bitch' role. And is Del Sol the last time you see the bloke?

 

[Clement Rage]

He's back in the barracks in Junon for the rest of the game, from his dialogue he managed the transport of Sister Ray and then got laid off 'the company told me not to bother coming back.' Why he's still in the barracks, I couldn't tell you.

In Costa, he's probably organising something like making sure the helicopter is there on time, that the meals are ready, catering for the bodyguards and staff, the kind of things senior management don't think about but are very important.

Dio knows you're chasing Sephiroth, he knows in order to follow him you'll have to cross a river, so he gives you something to help with that. I doubt it's his only one.

 

[koolaidman]

Three year bump, but wanted to post this because it's pretty strange.

XeroKynos found a hidden Black Materia model that's unseen and hidden at the top of some stairs in one of the buildings in Icicle Inn. Even if you were to walk through walls, the black materia model isn't loaded normally but I guess a flag exists that will allow it to load? The stairs leading up to it also have collision, which is interesting despite there not being any way visually for Cloud to get behind the counter. There's also a chest on the lower left hand corner that can't be opened but has an unused open graphic.

Check it out here:

 

[Luneyes]

The Black Materia is named "goods" in the field script. How weird.
It has a script to place it on the walkmesh, but is hidden after that. Maybe it's a placeholder of some sort that wasn't removed from the script?

 

[Kain424]

Here's another good one:

 

[Ite]

Spoiler: Thoughts on the video

But that was an April fools joke!

 

[Kain424]

Ah, you spoiled it! I thought it was very well done.

 

[Shademp]

I must have known this at some point but if I ever did, I had completely suppressed this knowledge. I had no idea that enemies could get the 7777 effect as well.

Time stamp 9:13 - 11:14

The speedrunner's reaction is priceless. (Skip to 10:12 if you want to get to the reaction)