What are some underrated moments in FF7?

[Conr]

A bit of an odd question, but I'm curious! We all know about the major plot beats, but sometimes smaller moments stick with individual players.

For example, I really liked when Cait Sith called attention to the civilian casualties caused by Avalanche when confronting Barret on the Highwind. Sure, Cait Sith is not a saint, but I like the moral grayness in this moment. Cait Sith had spent much of the game under a critical eye, rightly so.

But this moment shows how someone working in a government has to deal with cleaning up the mess. Cait Sith, being responsible for public works, was likely most familiar with the direct impact of the reactor bombings. Avalanche isn't really shown to do any cleanup work after doing this, they fire and forget. Even an uncaring corporation like Shinra had to do disaster response work. Cait Sith is making a good point about the lack of consideration given by Avalanche to this.

If I may tap into some of my studies, it shows a fatal flaw that Avalanche had as a revolutionary organization; Endearing itself to the people. Che Guevara highlighted this in his book Guerilla Warfare, where he mentioned again and again how important popular support was in a conflict. For example, he would make sure guerillas were always in uniform, so that counterrevolutionary troops would only target his own men and not uninvolved civilians.

Avalanche is not so organized, and their lack of consideration for civilians is something I found objectionable, even if they're ultimately fighting for the cause of good. Shinra is of course evil, and Cait Sith isn't exactly a morally pure character, but his perspective as an insider adds to the game in a good way! To see the game add this layer of complexity, even if only in a single line or two, was quite special to me!

 

[Ite]

On that note, I really like Biggs’ early line, “That should keep the Planet going… at least a little longer.” The hopelessness and inevitability of extinction looms large even in this video game’s first successful mission. It’s difficult to describe just how hard that hit coming out of 90s video game tradition. It’s not a loss or a defeat, it’s a hollow victory. Like, damn.

There are so many little moments, I could write a paragraph about a line from every scene I’m sure. It’s all killer.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

One of my favourites is Barret's dialogue after they reach Holzoff when they're about to be headed up Gaea Cliffs:

Barret: "...Seein' a place like this, makes you realize how awesome nature is. But, if anyone ever told me to live here, I'd tell them to... you know... I'll tell you one thing though, If I did have to live here I'd change things around 'n' make it better. I guess the total opposite of this would be...... Midgar. – When you think of it that way, Shinra don't seem so bad... Uuuuuuurrrrrgh!! What the hell am I sayin'!? The Shinra, not bad!?"

He still struggles with a lot of the cognitive dissonance on his feelings towards Shinra & how they're wrapped up with everything because he ultimately made the decision to support the Corel Reactor because it would legitimately have made life better for his wife at the time. His extremism in blowing up reactors is also connected to Shinra blaming the damaged reactor on them, so he's always been sort of working to earn what they already punished him for, but every once in a while we see little glimpses outside of who he's forced himself to be because of that.

Remake had a little bit of this preemptively with during Barret's ideological confrontation with President Shinra, that always reminded me of this scene from the original game because of how it REALLY highlights that particular element of Barret's character that's mostly hidden behind the antithetical opposite to Shinra that he has to turn himself into most of the time and shows that even he struggles to see things in those sorts of absolute terms that he's constantly forced into operating under.



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