The Ultimate Fantasy 7 Followers Who Re-Wrote Destiny

Aerith dies. If you realize one factor about Ultimate Fantasy 7, it’s most likely that Aerith dies. The praying woman will get minimize down by the man with the large sword. There’s a motive why this pivotal story beat is likely one of the most well-known spoilers in gaming: it’s a second that’s regularly surprised gamers since 1997.

Video video games had killed off important characters earlier than Ultimate Fantasy 7, however this was totally different. The resonance Aerith had with followers is incomparable, and the emotional influence of her dying left many gamers determined for a resurrection. Over 25 years, hearsay grew to become fable, fable grew to become hoax, and finally hope grew to become a approach to genuinely save the flower woman from Midgar. That is the within story of the gamers who re-wrote destiny and resurrected Aerith Gainsborough.

Aerith Gainsborough is likely one of the most beloved characters in RPG historical past. First launched as little greater than a flower service provider within the opening hour of Ultimate Fantasy 7, she quickly turns into a major determine within the story’s central solid. The revelation that she is the final remaining member of an historical race positions her as important to the plot, however it’s her multi-layered persona that made followers fall in love together with her.

“From the second you meet her she’s charming, she’s very candy, however she has a bit of little bit of spunk right here and there,” says Ally Tamara, a Ultimate Fantasy fan and cosplayer from Canada. “And she or he was simply a type of characters that instantly I personally fell in love with.”

“I feel she’s a extremely, actually unbelievable character the place you’ll be able to’t decide her based mostly on her look,” says Aequorinn, a UK-based cosplayer. “I form of assumed as a result of she clothes actually conservatively, and also you see the images of her praying, I assumed she was going to be fairly candy but additionally form of severe and boring and kind of self-sacrificial. However then it could not be farther from the reality.”

“I actually like that she’s very teasing,” she provides. “That she’s somebody who does not take issues too significantly, or slightly she’s energetic and tries to get everybody else to take pleasure in it alongside together with her.”

Aerith’s dying comes out of nowhere, and occurs simply as Ultimate Fantasy 7 gears up for its apocalyptic second half. Having discovered that villain Sephiroth plans to power a meteor to crash into the planet as a part of his try to ascend to godhood, protagonist Cloud and his pals head to the Forgotten Metropolis. There, Aerith will name upon the last word white magic, Holy, which she hopes will defend the world from the upcoming doom. Tragically, Sephiroth fatally interrupts the ritual on the last second.

“It was completely earth-shattering,” remembers Tamara. “She was at all times on my workforce, at all times. I simply liked her, it was simply one thing about her character, she was so candy and pure. And for no matter motive, perhaps it’s her persona and simply who she is, it is life-changing. I nonetheless have not gotten over her dying years later.”

“Aerith does die activating the Holy spell, so there’s this temptation to think about it as some noble sacrifice, however it’s actually not,” explains Aequorinn. “It is only a horrible tragedy that occurs. And I feel that is fairly totally different to how dying is often dealt with in video video games, actually at this time limit. I actually really feel just like the tragedy of it’s encapsulated by that one key paintings the place Aerith is wanting up on the Highwind. That turns into actually bittersweet for me as a result of she was essentially the most adventurous of the entire get together. She would have liked that, however she by no means will get to experience that airship.”

Aerith’s dying is a vital and irreversible second within the story of Ultimate Fantasy 7. However whereas she could have died within the recreation, Aerith endures by means of fan fiction, fan artwork, and – after all – cosplay.

“I bear in mind saying to myself as soon as I grew to become a cosplayer, I used to be about 20 years previous once I really began, I stated she’s a bucket listing,” Tamara remembers. “I’ve to do her, but when I do it I’ve to do it at the very least appropriate or what I really feel is sweet sufficient for me.”

“I really feel like, personality-wise, she’s most likely the character in Ultimate Fantasy 7 that I see myself essentially the most in,” says Aequorinn. “So I knew as quickly as I completed the sport that I wished to cosplay her. Not simply to indicate my appreciation for a recreation I actually loved, but additionally simply because I really like the character a lot.

“Since then, the Ultimate Fantasy 7 neighborhood has turn out to be such a large a part of my life, so I really feel prefer it’s made the cosplay actually particular to me.”

The unbelievable creations of Ultimate Fantasy followers are only one a part of Aerith’s story, although. For those who have been ever a faculty child throughout the days of the unique PlayStation, you then’ll nearly actually know that there was a a lot larger thriller round Aerith’s dying than simply find out how to create a worthy epitaph.

“I bear in mind once I was in elementary college, as a result of certainly one of my finest pals used to play it,” remembers Tamara. “And he stated ‘My brother instructed me there is a manner that you just may have the ability to deliver her again’. And I bear in mind one of many issues he stated to me, that is caught with me that I bear in mind attempting […], was you needed to have the max quantity of Phoenix Downs saved up in your stock, in order that manner by the point you bought to her dying you might resurrect her.

“However that is not all,” she continues. “After her dying you needed to get to the following save level, hit begin, and you then hit L1, R1, Circle, and you then’d get the title sequence and it was like ‘Oh, right here she is, she’s magically in your workforce’. She’d simply plop onto your menu to select from. And I attempted and clearly it by no means labored.”

Likelihood is, the hearsay you’ve simply learn isn’t the one you discovered about out of your college pal or an web message board. You will have heard that Tifa will sacrifice herself to avoid wasting Aerith if you happen to max out the suitable relationship stat. Or maybe that unlocking Aerith’s last Restrict Break earlier than her encounter with Sephiroth will stop her from dying. Or perhaps you heard the one about returning to the Forgotten Metropolis and utilizing Underwater materia to dive into the lake the place Aerith was laid to relaxation, the place you’ll be able to then use a fully-upgraded remedy materia to revive her. All these claims have been totally different, however ultimately they have been all the identical: bogus. False. Unfaithful. There isn’t any approach to save Aerith.

It went viral and there was individuals upset. There was positively individuals upset.

That’s to not say there wasn’t one thing unusual happening, although. Gamers who revisited the church within the Sector 5 slums would typically catch a quick glimpse of Aerith. Was it a glitch? Or was it a ghost? After 20 years of hypothesis, a video uploaded in 2019 claimed to have labored all of it out. In line with Oddheader, a YouTuber specialised in online game mysteries, there was really a grain of fact in one of many longstanding rumours. To resurrect Aerith, he defined, it’s a must to gather three objects – the Earth Harp, Desert Rose, and Information Guide – after which combat all opponents on the Gold Saucer’s 3D battle enviornment (together with a secret, invisible fifth enemy). Then it’s a must to give the three objects to the previous man in Kalm, after which head to the ghost of Aerith within the church. Then it’s a must to swap your controller port, and at last hit L1+R1+Circle collectively. That’s the secret to resurrecting Aerith.

“I bear in mind placing the video up,” remembers Randall Rigdon Jr., the creator of Oddheader. “It was the slower time, it appeared. Movies have been doing nice, however once I put that video up, out of the blue it exploded. It went to one million actually fast. On that first day, I bought some anxiousness about it as a result of I figured it was going to go largely out to my viewers and as an alternative it went out. It went viral and there was individuals upset. There was positively individuals upset.”

Why have been individuals upset? Nicely, the date the video premiered on is an important a part of the story. April 1st. The entire thing was an April Fools joke.

“Nicely, actually, the entire video was really based mostly on a remark that I bought,” explains Rigdon Jr. “I get submissions on a regular basis and so they’re pretend and foolish issues, however that was the primary one the place I checked out that and I used to be like, ‘Nicely, perhaps there’s a glitch. I have not heard of that.’ Then after all, to seek out out that it was false, I used to be like, ‘Nicely, I believed it, so I feel I can persuade sufficient those who it is true then.’”

The remark, posted on a earlier Oddheader video about Ultimate Fantasy 7 mysteries, theorised that giving the Earth Harp, Desert Rose, and Information Guide to the previous man in Kalm would revive Aerith’s glitch ghost within the church. It was one other false hearsay, after all, however Rigdon Jr. noticed a chance to mix that fable with loads of fact to create a video that wasn’t only a prank, however one thing based mostly on genuinely fascinating trivia.

“I blended numerous reliable discoveries with pretend discoveries,” he reveals. “It was additionally an excuse to cowl numerous issues that I had been desirous to cowl, however actually would not slot in a video in any other case. As an example, I make a giant deal about all the additional cross-dressing dialogue that was information mined from the sport, which was discovered a long time later.

“There’s additionally the hidden opponent that might be present in 3D battler,” he provides. “For those who have been to beat all 4 opponents, you get a fifth invisible opponent that at all times kills you instantly. That is actual. I assumed that was so cool.”

Fascinatingly, the weirdest a part of Oddheader’s video is definitely rooted in actual fact. In his faked footage of the resurrection, the music distorts and visuals warp as Aerith says to Cloud “Foolish… Didn’t anybody inform you? This IS Hades.” It’s a line taken instantly from Ultimate Fantasy 7, albeit from a scene gamers have been by no means meant to see.

“It was largely based mostly on one other discovery the place if you happen to hack right into a debug room, you might speak to her and she or he had particular dialogue and there was plenty of choices,” reveals Rigdon Jr. “One of many choices, I feel, was like, ‘What is that this place?’ One thing alongside these strains. Then she’s like, ‘Oh, do not you realize? That is Hades.’”

“However that line, ‘That is Hades,’ that grew to become a bit of little bit of a meme on the channel,” he says. “It was positively like, ‘What if that line was purported to be within the recreation?’ As a result of it might make sense that strains that you’d discover within the debug room have been really meant to be within the recreation.”

After all, for each fact in Oddheader’s video there’s a lie.

“I full-on faked {a magazine} quote to indicate the journal,” laughs Rigdon Jr. “I really feel dangerous. I quoted all these pretend quotes and attributed them to individuals. I am like, I hope they did not get mad discovering out that I faked all these items.”

Then there’s the pretend Sq. worker who tipped him off in regards to the L1+R1+Circle code. Anybody suspicious sufficient to run a fast Google would have discovered that their identify, Honto Janai, interprets to “not likely” in English. But it surely wasn’t simply emails and journal proof that wanted to be faked. To create a video, Rigdon Jr. wanted gameplay footage of the resurrection in motion.

“I’ve lots of people coming to me like, ‘Can I get that mod? I wish to use it in my video’,” he says. “Plenty of the Ultimate Fantasy neighborhood, really. I’ve to disclose them. That was all principally animation. […] Like Aerith being there within the scene, she’s principally cropped in from one other scene, so half of the picture is cropped.”

“I bought all of the characters and I actually needed to crop every character out of that font-face and manually place them into place on the dialogue field, after which body by body, I animate the textual content, writing in and all the things,” he explains. “It was actually achieved body by body. It took me weeks.”

“I had it in order that the audio time warps or time stretches,” he says. “Even doing these sound results and stuff, I used to be like, I do know that PlayStation cannot actually do that on the fly, in actual time, manipulate the audio like that, however that was the enjoyable of the thriller. What if Aerith, you revived her and out of the blue she’s making your console doing issues that you just would not anticipate. So it was positively impressed largely by the thought of creepypastas.”

I am not upset that I’ve perhaps contributed to the online game mythology on the market.

The video went stay on April 1st, 2019 and shortly grew to become certainly one of Oddheader’s most watched (and most disliked) movies of all time. Whereas many immediately realised the joke and loved the enjoyable, loads of others have been caught up within the hoax.

“I satisfied so many individuals,” Rigdon Jr. says. “I bear in mind when the video went up and I felt dangerous about it, a journalist, a reporter for Vice tweeted it out and he tagged me. He was like, ‘You probably did it.’ He is like, ‘All these years, I can not imagine it.’ Then instantly all these individuals replied. They’re like, ‘Examine the date of the video, dude.’”

“What’s so humorous to me, I assumed it was a lifeless giveaway when Aerith on the finish says, ‘Let’s roll, homie.’ I assumed to everyone that will be the clear getaway,” he says.

Right now, the video has over two million views, and continues to idiot individuals. That doesn’t trouble Rigdon Jr., although.

“I am not upset that I’ve perhaps contributed to the online game mythology on the market,” he says. “That is a part of the enjoyable of video video games, is we like to make up little secrets and techniques and stuff, and a few of them develop into true and that is actually thrilling. This simply occurs to be a dud. This isn’t a type of issues, however it’s enjoyable to be part of that. For those who’re actually a fan of the sport, this shouldn’t be unfamiliar territory. The legend of reviving Aerith has been [around] for the reason that recreation has come out. I feel actually for the reason that recreation got here out, individuals have been making that legend up.”

In its personal manner, the legend retains Aerith alive. However whereas it looks like the guide is properly and actually closed on any hidden in-game methodology of saving Aerith, there’s some fact in the concept a glitch might be the key to defying dying.

In 2013, speedrunner Neohart uploaded a video to his YouTube channel revealing a wild discovery within the PC model of Ultimate Fantasy 7. He’d discovered that the cutscene wherein you recruit Yuffie is someway related to your earlier recreation over state. That connection will be exploited to ‘warp’ from the Yuffie encounter again to the battle you failed. And that might be nearly any battle; even a boss combat from the very finish of the sport. The potential for speedrunning was apparent, however gamers quickly realised that this ‘Yuffie Warping’ glitch might be used to skip the Forgotten Metropolis and forestall Aerith’s dying.

However the results of the glitch is only mechanical. It retains Aerith within the get together, and she or he will be levelled up and made an important a part of your battle technique, however she’s nothing greater than a unvoiced warrior. She’s not in any cutscenes, and has no function within the story. She is soulless.

To really give Aerith life after dying, her story needed to be re-written. The code and script of the sport wanted to be modified to assist you to save her life and combat alongside her to guard the planet. And that’s precisely what occurred.

New Menace is an formidable overhaul for the PC model of Ultimate Fantasy 7. It’s the work of Stewart Melville, a modder higher often called SegaChief, and has a totally refreshed strategy to battles, bosses, character development, and synthetic intelligence.

“I feel what I actually wished to do was simply shock individuals and simply preserve them ,” says Melville. “Add little issues in and perhaps not doc them simply in order that they’ll uncover them on their very own. That is how the Aerith factor took place initially as a result of I used to be simply engaged on the fight. I did not actually have any intention of doing something story-wise.”

What began as a mod to remix the sport’s fight grew to become more and more extra superior and complicated. The sport was break up into two pathways – Kind A and Kind B – with Kind B that includes important modifications to not simply the sport’s mechanics, however its story, too. Close to sufficient each boss is totally different from these within the authentic recreation. There are model new conversations. Occasions play out in several methods. Even the Wall Market cross-dressing situation is changed with a difficult multi-phase battle in Don Corneo’s dungeon. However the change New Menace is most well-known for is the one which lastly makes the rumours true. It can save you Aerith.

“So initially I simply went with that previous joke, the Phoenix Down, which was a little bit of an eye-roller,” says Melville. “But it surely was often fairly humorous on streams as a result of individuals in chat would say that beforehand, ‘Simply use the Phoenix Down,’ after which they might watch because it really occurred and also you’d get a superb pop off on it. However in a while I made a decision to attempt to make it a bit extra seamless, simply attempt to incorporate it into the gameplay mechanics a bit extra.”

Within the present model of New Menace, Aerith is a part of the Jenova Life boss battle that instantly follows her dying. After a couple of turns of fight, Jenova will resurrect Aerith and use her as a pawn. Killing Jenova with out downing Aerith within the course of triggers an entire new alternate route by means of the ultimate half of the sport; one wherein Aerith stays a core a part of the mission to avoid wasting the planet.

“I simply figured it might be good to have the gameplay mechanic do it slightly than have a dialogue choice or one thing, or another requirement that it’s a must to go do a fetch quest or one thing,” says Melville. “I simply wished it to be a bit extra fascinating.”

However understanding find out how to implement Aerith’s resurrection was simply the beginning. Aerith was now alive for the remainder of the sport; that’s hours and hours of story. That meant Melville needed to rewrite the script to acknowledge her survival.

“So once I initially did it, I attempted to maintain the footprint of it as little as attainable,” he says. “Scenes the place all of the characters seem, you simply add a duplicate in and repurpose the dialogue and the animations and you then’re good to go.

“However there was a scene in the direction of the top of disc two which I knew was going to be problematic,” he remembers. “I feel it was Cosmo Canyon, once they begin speaking about Aerith and what she was perhaps doing earlier than she handed away. And I feel that was the massive drawback as a result of you’ll be able to’t have that when she’s standing there so it’s a must to consider one thing. So I feel top-of-the-line methods of getting out of a plot gap is to revisit stuff that is gone earlier than and search for one thing that you should use. And I feel one of many issues was she wasn’t positive what she was going there for and issues like that, so there is a little bit of ambiguity. So I used to be ready to make use of that and repurpose that into the scene after which that appeared to work out.”

It’s important to watch out about the way you deal with it as a result of you may get a bit too sappy.

Melville had studied artistic writing at college, and that training helped him put collectively Aerith’s new script. “I simply regarded on the dialogue quite a bit, attempting to get the patterns and the way it was written,” he says. “It is not how I’d often write dialogue for characters, the way in which the sport presents dialogue, and video games themselves have a unique manner of presenting dialogue to, say, a guide. So it was only a case of attempting to imitate that and get into the rhythm of it in order that it might attempt to match.”

Not lengthy after the sequence within the Forgotten Metropolis, Cloud discovers the house of Professor Ghast; Aerith’s organic father. With Aerith now alive for this second, Melville needed to rigorously re-script the situation in an effort to strike the suitable tone.

“It is scenes like that I discover a bit extra awkward,” he says. “It’s important to watch out about the way you deal with it as a result of you may get a bit too sappy, I assume. You may perhaps get a bit too melodramatic so I attempt to discover a balancing act if I can or simply attempt to not go to 1 excessive to the opposite, attempt to make it too lighthearted or attempt to make it too melodramatic. Perhaps attempt to discover that center floor.”

It was additionally necessary to maintain Aerith’s sense of journey alive, too, and so not all the things might be focussed on her relationship with the planet and plot. You get to see her go a bit of wild throughout the siege of Junon when she beats Scarlett over the pinnacle with a chair; a enjoyable reference to Ultimate Fantasy 7 Remake. However one of the best instance of New Menace’s strategy to writing will be discovered throughout the flashback to Zack’s dying.

“I wanted to discover a place to place every character’s restrict breaks,” says Melville. “So it at all times begins often from a gameplay factor, […] However then I additionally was engaged on a request that folks wished Aerith to be a bit extra concerned within the story previous disc one, so I used to be searching for alternatives to do this. I used to be at Cloud’s scene the place he is speaking about Zack and that is when it clicked that perhaps that is a superb place for that to be positioned.”

With Aerith now within the get together, this sequence isn’t just Cloud placing collectively the final items of his fractured reminiscence, but additionally Aerith lastly discovering the tragic destiny of her boyfriend. As the 2 replicate on the lack of Zack, their last Restrict Breaks are unlocked. It’s a poignant approach to conclude their private tales.

Due to New Menace, Aerith lastly will get to experience the Highwind and embrace her love of journey. However regardless of the mod’s recognition and success, Melville often wonders if bringing Aerith again from the lifeless was the suitable name.

“Typically I remorse including the characteristic in, if that is smart,” he says. “Say if you happen to’re speaking about [how] I’ve made some enhancements to how the dialogue’s offered, after which anyone fires again, ‘However you probably did this factor, so how will you say the story’s higher?’ You may by no means say it is an goal enchancment, actually.”

“What I’ve discovered over time is that folks have totally different expectations of what they need out of it,” he provides. “Some individuals are replaying it to benefit from the story once more, so a characteristic like that would not be notably welcome. Different individuals are searching for one thing new and fascinating, or they’ve heard about that characteristic and so they wish to expertise it, issues like that. So it’s a must to preserve all of that in thoughts once you’re making issues like this. However I feel for the remake, they need to perhaps watch out about doing issues like that or they will get fairly a little bit of backlash.”

Considerably just like New Menace, the continued official Ultimate Fantasy 7 Remake collection is a whole re-imagining of the unique recreation. Coping with themes of destiny and future, the re-written occasions see Cloud and Aerith select a really totally different path. Up to now, that has already resulted in Zack surviving his encounter with the Shinra guards who killed him within the authentic recreation. And so it stands to motive that the upcoming second recreation within the trilogy – Ultimate Fantasy 7 Rebirth – might go wherever, together with avoiding Aerith’s dying. Simply the potential of that’s already each thrilling and controversial.

“As a lot as I really like her and the identical with Zack, seeing him come again I used to be ‘Oh my gosh’, however on the similar time each of their deaths have been so monumental and had such a huge effect on the collection that I do not know if I need them to go that route,” says Ally Tamara. “As a lot as I might like to see them alive, it is an excessive amount of. Every little thing that occurred was meant to occur, and clearly modified lots of our lives and lots of of our gaming experiences. The truth that so many individuals who speak about Aerith’s dying have it up there as probably the most monumental deaths in a online game speaks volumes.”

“I feel [Aerith’s death] will go forward however perhaps not in the identical place,” says Stewart Melville. “As a result of I feel the entire thought of it was, in case you have a narrative like that the place everyone seems to be conscious of the twists and turns of it, so to talk, you want a manner of recreating engagement, simply not understanding the place issues are going to go. And I feel they’ve succeeded in doing that, perhaps in a little bit of a heavy-handed manner, however they’ve efficiently made it so that you just’re not fairly positive what is going on to occur subsequent. However I feel that issues will play out kind of the identical.”

“It could be one thing else,” says Randall Rigdon Jr. about the potential of Aerith surviving. “I’d like to see it. It could positively be a recreation changer. I must go make one other April Fools’ video that exhibits that you would be able to nonetheless kill her, I assume.”

What I actually love in regards to the remake is that much more individuals are experiencing Aerith as I really feel she was meant to be.

Whatever the remake’s eventual path, certainly one of its enduring legacies may have been offering many, many extra hours for gamers to get to know and respect certainly one of Ultimate Fantasy’s most iconic and necessary characters.

“I feel lots of people do bear in mind her from her dying scene within the authentic recreation, however due to that there is at all times this sort of unhappiness when individuals speak about Aerith, they form of do not speak about how she is within the recreation, however they speak about how they felt when she died,” displays Aequorinn. “It is true that it is actually unhappy when it occurs, however what I actually love about particularly the remake is that much more individuals are experiencing her as I really feel she was meant to be, so that you’re reminded that she is not simply this sort of sombre character who goes and sacrifices herself within the recreation. She’s not simply headed in the direction of this dying sentence, however she’s actually energetic and she or he simply brings this actually massive sense of journey to Ultimate Fantasy 7.”

Regardless of taking place over 25 years in the past, Aerith’s dying stays probably the most memorable and mentioned moments within the historical past of video video games. The emotional influence of her loss is revealing; solely a very unforgettable character might be the place to begin for certainly one of gaming’s most persistent city myths, a legion of cosplaying followers, a hoax video with over two million views, and a painstakingly-crafted mod that re-writes her story.

Aerith could have died. However Aerith lives on due to the enduring love of the Ultimate Fantasy 7 neighborhood.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK Information and Options Editor. Dale Driver is the Govt Producer of Video Programming.

With particular due to Ally Tamara, Aequorinn, Randall Rigdon Jr., Stewart Melville, @duuken, nalvara, Karasu, Frankie Lollia, HighScore, Jakisaur, Sebbywebz, Jegged.com, Neohart, and Limitless.