Final Fantasy 7 Remake finally launched in 2020 and has been met with mostly praise when it comes to critical reception. Developing and releasing a remake of a game as beloved as the original Final Fantasy 7 is a herculean feat, and with Square Enix publishing it’s a miracle it ever released.
The remake does a good job of paying respect to the original while still modernizing aspects of it so it may hold up to current gaming standards. Let’s now take a look at 10 easter eggs you might have missed your first time through Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
10 Victory Poses
Nostalgia is a powerful thing, and in the Final Fantasy franchise, it’s no different. Players who fell in love with the original had plenty of expectations and wants for the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and Square Enix was fighting an uphill battle from day one.
Fans were initially bummed to learn that the iconic post-battle victory poses wouldn’t be making a return in the remake. It turns out that they weren’t completely removed and could be viewed if you decided to fight and win in Corneo’s Colosseum, located in Wall Market.
9 High Score
A neat thing about Tifa’s 7th Heaven bar is that it serves as a cover for Avalanche’s hideout which is accessed via an elevator hidden under the pinball machine. Activating this machine, and thus the elevator, in the remake will have the machine post a high score of 7,777.
This may seem like people just love the number 7, but it’s a callback to the original game. If a character obtained 7,777 HP it would put them into a damaging combo attack. This would happen automatically and will forever be tied to the optional boss named Emerald Weapon.
8 Barret’s Backstory
Barret, for many people in the original Final Fantasy 7, was a big bombastic character who sometimes felt a little too much over the top. In the remake, they do a better job of refining him and are slowly revealing his history with Shinra and the events that led him to be the man he is.
Players can experience a guided tour revolving around Shinra’s history and during this section Barret will retort that he never should have trusted Shinra. The sequel will likely dive deeper into why Barret now wields a gun as a prosthetic arm.
7 Special Tifa Conversation
The Final Fantasy 7 Remake does a good job of hiding special missions and events, that only the most dedicated will stumble upon. One of these is a special event with Tifa that can only be experienced if you happen to complete enough side-missions in Chapter 3 of the game.
On top of seeing Tifa’s cowboy boots featured in in-game flashbacks, players will also choose which type of outfit she should wear during a future event with Cloud. It wouldn’t be Final Fantasy without a good amount of fan service, right?
6 Save Benches
Fans of the original quickly realized that the remake released in 2020 didn’t have the save points they were used to. Instead, the game implemented a modern save system for players which made the game feel a lot more like games released in the modern generation of video games.
Square Enix did make a point to have a callback to those original savepoints via the benches marked with the save icon from the original game. These benches refill the player’s health and magic but offer a bit of nostalgia as well.
5 Series Regulars
In Sector 5 Cloud and company work their tails off in an attempt to get prepared for Wall Market. Many of the missions and interactions are optional, but it’s hard to miss the orphanage on the way to Aerith’s home. Along with helping the woman who runs the orphanage find her kids, Cloud can go inside and explore the small building.
In the classroom, he’ll find drawings on the chalkboard that seem rather familiar. The drawings are of reoccurring monsters in the Final Fantasy franchise, including a Chocobo, Moogle, and Cactuar.
4 7th Heaven Pictures
When you first enter the bright and shiny 7th Heaven in Final Fantasy 7 Remake you’re treated to what the bar looks like in a 3-dimensional world full of incredible detail and modeling.
If you walk to the back of the bar, behind the counter, you can find a couple of pictures that feature images of the bar from the original game. It’s always nice to see a side by side comparison when these types of remakes occur, and this game does it in a weird meta way that comes across way less immersion-breaking than you’d think.
3 The City of the Ancients
The 16th chapter in Final Fantasy 7 Remake is special because it allows players to experience the history of Shinra as a company and learn much more about the world’s past. In one of the snippets, players get a brief look at a grassy wild area that looks a lot like The City of the Ancients.
This place plays a key role in the narrative of the game, so we’ll look to avoid spoiling it for newcomers who never played the original. In the coming sequels, players will learn a lot more about this hallowed ground.
2 Cait Sith
Are you one of the countless players who were confused when a random cat with a crown showed up in the middle of the Sector 7 collapse? This was one of a couple of moments that were solely meant to tease fans of the original game, and in turn, left the newcomers scratching their head.
That cat is a character by the name of Cait Sith, who in the original was controlled by Reeve, a Shinra executive. It isn’t even a real cat, rather it happens to be a plushy of some sort.
1 Stamp
Stamp is an iconic little dog mascot that is a propaganda tool to usher in young kids into a pro-Shinra mindset. Barret and Avalanche seem to molded it into their secret marker, thus turning the propaganda on its head. In addition to this, the dog is used as a clue to showcase there’s a narrative involving multiple realities at play.
During a flashback featuring Cloud and Zack, players can see a bag of chips with Stamp printed on them, except Stamp happens to be a completely different breed of dog.
NEXT: Final Fantasy 7 Remake: The 10 Best Complete Materia, Ranked
