Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy VII
Developer: Square Product Development Division 1 Publishers: Square (JP), SCEA (US PS1), SCEE (EU PS1), SCE Australia (AU PS1), Eidos Interactive (Windows) Platforms: PlayStation, Windows Released in JP: January 31, 1997 (PS1) Released in US: August 31, 1997 (PS1), June 25, 1998 (Windows) Released in EU: November 14, 1997 (PS1), June 25, 1998 (Windows) Released in AU: November 17, 1997 (PS1) This game has unused areas. This game has a hidden developer message. This game has unused enemies. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused items. This game has unused abilities. This game has unused music. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material. This game has regional differences. This game has a prototype article This game has a prerelease article This game has a notes page This game has a Data Crystal page

To do: Revision differences between the original release and the re-release, such as censorship. Dummied out Fort Condor units.

Final Fantasy VII may be the single most divisive game in RPG history. There are those who think of it as the best RPG ever, still having no equal, while others consider it the most overrated piece of trash ever. Either way, both sides agree: it is definitely one of the games of all time, so much that it's being remade in not one, not two, but three entire games as part of an ongoing trilogy.

Sub-Pages

Prototype Info

Prerelease Info

Notes

Debug Room Silly. Didn't you know? This is Hades!

Unused Text Lots of unused dialogue from various versions of the game.

Regional Differences The original Japanese version is pretty unpolished compared to the international versions.

Unused Key Items

There are a few unused key items in the game. Note that there is no "Unlimited Money Card" here. Old rumor: proven false.

• Letter to a Daughter - A letter for a daughter that lives in Kalm.
• Letter to a Wife - A letter for a wife that lives in Kalm. There is an unused conversation in Gongaga for a traveling salesman who asks you to deliver this letter for him.
• Mysterious Panties - This was intended for the Wall Market cross-dressing sequence, but the sequence where you'd have obtained it was cut (see below). There are three of just about every item obtainable here, in ascending order of quality, but there are only two lingerie items. This would have been the third.

(Source: FF7 Citadel)

Unused Materia

There are a handful of unused materia in the game's code. It's unknown what they were intended for (testing purposes?), but it's worth noting that they're only named in the Japanese version; they're nameless in the western release.

• ブースター (Booster) - Support Materia, max level 5 stars at 90,000 total AP. Does nothing. It's speculated that this would have boosted AP gain on the attached Materia. While a Support Materia with this function would be included in Final Fantasy VII Remake in the form of the AP Up (APアップ) Materia, it's unknown if that's what was intended here.
• ほうそく (Law) Command Materia, max level 2 stars at 20,000 total AP. Teaches the Gil Toss command. There is an unused command with the same name in the demo version.
• マバリア (MBarrier) - Magic Materia, max level 3 stars at 20,000 total AP. Teaches MBarrier at each level. In the final game, MBarrier is attached to the Barrier Materia instead.
• リフアブ (RifuAbu; "Reflect Absorb") - Magic Materia, max level 3 stars at 60,000 total AP. Level 1 is blank, level 2 teaches Wall. This is actually paired with a dummied battle status of the same name existing in the original Japanese release, and was probably intended as some sort of countermeasure against Reflect.
• リフレク (Reflect) - Magic Materia, max level 4 stars at 20,000 total AP. Level 1 teaches Reflect, and level 2 teaches Wall. In the final game, Reflect and Wall are attached to the Barrier Materia instead.
• すいちゅうこきゅう (Underwater Respiration) - This is the Independant Materia the man in Kalm gives you to fight Emerald Weapon. It went unused only in the initial Japanese release, due to Emerald Weapon's absence from that version. Of slight interest, the Materia's Japanese name was changed when it finally was used there, to せんすい (Diving).

Unused Graphics

Unused Character Portrait

A placeholder character portrait (MENU\KALI.Tim), reading "Now Printing" in Hiragana. "Now Printing" is a common placeholder used by Japanese media when a picture isn't ready at the time of press. To see this, add an undefined character to your party.

Giant X Portrait

To do: Palette is almost definitely wrong. Try and find the correct one, if it even exists.

During the opening credits, three copies of this are loaded into nearly the same spot of VRAM as the character portraits. As soon as you reach the New Game or Continue screen, they are overwritten by Barret, Tifa, and Cloud's portraits. Note that they're not in the exact same spot of VRAM, so the bottom-most part of one of them is never overwritten.

Item Icons

A group of item icons done in a very similar style to the previous SNES games, although most of it is copies of one of the swords.

Tifa Slot Icons

Grouped with the icons for Tifa's Limit Break slots are three icons that are never used: a 7, BAR, and a chocobo. These exact icons were actually used in Final Fantasy VI as part of Setzer's Slot ability, and may have simply been placeholders for use during development.

Battle Arena Slots

Grouped with the icons for the Battle Arena slots are two copies of this placeholder-looking X.

Quadra Magic Kanji

While this graphic is used in the Japanese versions when hovering over magic that's paired with Quadra Magic, it also still exists in the US version, albeit predictably unused.

All Icon

While almost definitely meant to be used when using Materia paired with All, all instances of the word All in the game are just spelled out in the regular font rather than displayed through a special glyph character like this.

• Note that this is not in the Japanese releases. In fact, the Japanese equivalent in those versions is used.

Status Icons

Also not found in either Japanese release is this set of what appear to be status icons. The only status effects that have icons are silence and sleep, and neither use any of the icons found here.

Unused Face Textures

File FIELD\FIELD.TDB contains face textures common for different map fields used by both the playable characters and NPCs.

Playable Characters (and Zack)

The playable characters have 5 different eye textures, and 2 mouth textures. In the PlayStation version, only eye textures 1 and 2 are normally used (the regular open eyes, and the regular closed eyes, used when blinking or sleeping) except for two scripted occasions:

• Aerith's eye texture 3 used when she is laughing during Cloud's dream after the Temple of Ancients.
• Barret's eye texture 4 is used during his flashback in Corel's Prison, when Dyne is falling.

All other eye textures, which would give a different facial expression for the characters, aren't used.

The PC version only includes eyes textures 1 and 2, so the scenes above are not displayed properly:

• In Cloud's dream after the Temple of Ancients, Aerith's eye texture 1 (regular open eyes) is used when she is laughing.
• In Barret's flashback, oddly enough, Cloud's eye number 2 (closed eyes) is used on Barret's model.

Each playable character also includes two mouth textures (closed and open variations). Only Cid's and Tifa's mouth textures are used in the PlayStation version, and only in two scripted occasions:

• Cid's mouth texture 2 (open mouth) is used in the scene where he is with Cloud in Gold Saucer's Round Square.
• Tifa's mouth texture 1 (closed mouth) is used when she is talking to Cloud under the Highwind at the end of Disc 2.

All other mouth textures go unused in the PlayStation version. The PC version includes and uses only the "closed mouth" variation (mouth texture 2), so the Round Square scene with Cid uses a different texture than the PlayStation version.

Zack's textures use the same format as the playable character textures, even though he isn't one. Perhaps this is because his textures were based on Cloud's (it's a palette swap of his used open eye).

Cloud	Aeris	Barret	Tifa	Red XIII	Cid	Yuffie	Cait Sith	Vincent	Zack

Cloud's eyes variations look like the following when hacked to be used in-game:

Eye 1 (Used, regular)	Eye 2 (Used, blinking)
Eye 3 (Unused)	Eye 4 (Unused)	Eye 5 (Unused)

NPCs

The non-playable characters include only a single eye and mouth texture each. Mouth textures are unused in the PlayStation versions, but they are included and used in the PC version.

The NPC names included in the table below are just one example of a character that uses that texture. Some textures are shared between multiple NPCs.

President Shinra	Rufus	Jessie	Biggs	Cloud's Mom	Choco Billy	Chloe	Johnny	Wedge	Play Wizard	Mideel NPC	Sephiroth
Corneo	Marlene	Scarlet	Lucrecia	Hojo	Heidegger	Tseng	Train Guard	Ghost Square NPC	Dyne	Young Cid

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Unused Logo

Found in BATTLE\TITLE.BIN in all versions of the game is an unused logo.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Unused Location Name

To do: Get the Gameshark code and some screenshots in the proper resolution.

If you use a "No Water" GameShark code to get rid of the water graphic on the world map, you can explore a version of the underwater map with glitched-out textures on foot. If you open the menu inside the underwater map (not accessible during normal gameplay), you will see the location listed as "Bottom of the Sea," a unique location name not used anywhere else.

Glitched Underwater Map	"Bottom of the Sea"

Unused Status

There is an unused status effect called "Dual" in the game's code, which does nothing. It is possible that this would have been similar to the Double status from Final Fantasy VIII (which allowed the player to cast magic twice in one turn) but was cut in favor of W-Magic.

10th Element

In addition to an unused status effect, an entire element was mostly dummied out, though it's still connected to several attacks... the majority of which deal no damage, rendering their elements essentially irrelevant. The only damage-dealing attack this "element" is used by is Ultimate Weapon's powerful "Ultima Beam", which can be helpful to know, as it's possible to halve/nullify/absorb this "element" if any non-elemental Materia (such as Restore) is paired with an "Elemental" Materia in a character's armor. This element was even mentioned in official Japanese sources, where it was referred to as simply the "10th Element" (１０番目の属性). Given that it was clearly originally meant to be a more prominent part of the game, it's unknown why future releases curtailed its presence so heavily. Perhaps in order to make the method for resisting Ultimate Weapon's Ultima Beam attack more of a secret?

Unused Enemy Data

Enemy Encounters

• Ho-chu: This giant plant monster can normally only be fought in the last round of the Battle Square or round 2 of the special battle, but encounter data in the game indicates its use at one point in the Ancient Forest. This battle is tagged as inescapable, so this enemy would only have been seen in fixed encounters.

• Tonberry: Another monster that can only be fought in the Battle Square. It has an unused encounter in the Whirlwind Maze section of the Northern Crater. It also has an almost unused attack called 'Time Damage', which has such obscure criteria for its use that no one likely ever saw it without explicitly trying to do so: the player must get three attacks in a row, something that likely requires hasting the attacker and slowing the Tonberry. The attack itself inflicts (100*hours played)+minutes played damage, making it potentially one of the most powerful attacks in the game.

Hidden Enemy Skills

• Dual Horn: This enemy has a skill it will never use, as it costs 65535 MP. It targets a random combatant, friend or foe, has no name, and inflicts no damage. Only the condition for its use exists: it will use the attack if its HP drops to 50% or below.
• Acrophies: This hermit crab with a snake for an arm that you might fight in the forgotten capital has the unique almost-unused ability Isogin Smog (isoginchaku = sea anemone in Japanese) that inflicts damage and darkness on the entire party. The catch is the condition for its use is that the entire party already be under the darkness status.

Hidden Test Enemies

Some of the 256 battle scene data sets of the game contain dummied-out test enemies whose names have not been translated (or even re-encoded) for the international releases of the game, which is why they show up as garbage strings in battle. With the exception of scene 249, which can be started via the "BATTLE999" option in the debug rooms, none of these battles are accessible in-game.

Scene	Enemy names (JP)	Enemy names (US/EU)	Enemy names (retranslated)	Notes
0	テスト0(ガードハウンド) テスト1(戦闘員) テスト2(ディーングロウ)	êúô0(äñ) êúô1() êúô2(ñ)	Test 0 (Guard Hound) Test 1 (Grunt) Test 2 (Deenglow)
1	テスト4(ヘッジホックパイ) テスト5(サーペント) テスト6(アダマンタイマイ)	êúô4(ëöù) êúô5(áñô) êúô6(ñâ)	Test 4 (Hedgehog Pie) Test 5 (Serpent) Test 6 (Adamantaimai)	The Japanese name of the Hedgehog Pie is misspelled (it should have been ヘッジホッグパイ).
2	テスト0(ガードハウンド) テスト2(ディーングロウ) テスト4(ヘッジホックパイ)	êúô0(äñ) êúô2(ñ) êúô4(ëöù)	Test 0 (Guard Hound) Test 2 (Deenglow) Test 4 (Hedgehog Pie)
3	テスト7(グロスパンッアーA) テスト8(グロスパンッアーB) テスト9(グロスパンッアーC)	êúô7(úñA) êúô8(úñB) êúô9(úñC)	Test 7 (Grosspanzer A) Test 8 (Grosspanzer B) Test 9 (Grosspanzer C)	The Japanese name is slightly misspelled (it should have been グロスパンツァー).
4	ふせや かずまさクン まつむら やすしクン		Fuseya Kazumasa-kun Matsumura Yasushi-kun	Fuseya Kazumasa was one of the battle programmers of the game, while Yasushi Matsumura was the battle plan director. The enemy AI for this scene also contains the message "ふせや かずまさは死亡した." ("Fuseya Kazumasa has died.").
5	テスト0(ガードハウンド)	êúô0(äñ)	Test 0 (Guard Hound)
6	テスト0(ガードハウンド) テスト1(戦闘員)	êúô0(äñ) êúô1()	Test 0 (Guard Hound) Test 1 (Grunt)
238	テスト0(ガードハウンド)	êúô0(äñ)	Test 0 (Guard Hound)
239	テスト0(ガードハウンド)	êúô0(äñ)	Test 0 (Guard Hound)	This scene also contains a Tonberry enemy (see Enemy Encounters, above).
247	テスト2(ディーングロウ)	êúô2(ñ)	Test 2 (Deenglow)
249	テスト0(ガードハウンド) テスト2(ディーングロウ)	êúô0(äñ) êúô2(ñ)	Test 0 (Guard Hound) Test 2 (Deenglow)	The second enemy is the famous pyramid which can be fought via the BATTLE999 debug option.

Unused Areas

To do: Rip the dynamic content such as screens.

There are three unused maps originally intended for the Honey Bee Inn. These maps exist only on the original (non-International) Japanese version. There's a handful of dialogue associated with these maps that can be checked out here with the translations.

There's quite a lot of Japanese text scattered around in the main lobby. Below are translations of the text:

Location	Original	Translation
Sign above left door	今日の女の子	Today’s Girls
2nd sign above left door	はいっちゃダメ	No entry!
Sign above stairs	お二階へどうぞ	Go on up to the second floor.
Sign on reception desk	受付	Reception
Sign above right door	待合室	Waiting Room
Fans in foreground	みつばち美人	Honey Bee Beauties
Various messages on the screen	美少女との語らい	Chat with beautiful women!
	蜜蜂の館 すぺしゃるコース ３０分コース １５０分コース	Honey Bee Inn Special Sessions: 30 Minute Session 150 Minute Session
	わたしの巣箱へいらっしゃい	Come on in to my hive.
	はちみつはいかが？	How about some honey?
Sign on right wall (kanji difficult to make out)	？？？・同業者・スカウト・未成年 お断りします。 引き抜いた場合「１０万ギル」 の罰金です。	???, owners of other brothels, scouts, and minors not accepted. Headhunters will be fined 100,000 gil.

Unused Music

This track is found in the original Japanese version and PC version (with the filename COMICAL.MID) but is left unused. It was intended for an unused scene in the Honey Bee Inn (unused areas, Unused 'Palmer scene' - YouTube) involving Palmer. Despite this, the track itself bears resemblance to a theme associated with Yuffie.

Suspiciously, COMICAL.MID has the first track labeled as "PIZZICATO" but the PS version uses something more similar to woodblocks or a muted cowbell. It's not known if the sound team had made minute changes to the "soundfont" used by the game, but it's quite possible as the team behind the PC port famously had been given an older source code.

Here's an updated PSF file with the aforementioned sound changed back to a Pizzicato sound:
(Original PSF is still available through the file's history page)

Download Comical File: Final Fantasy 7 - Comical.zip (406 KB) (info)

An older, in-development version of Aeris' Theme can be found in the field data, named BLACKBGA.

Otherwise identical to the final version, this one has been compiled at a time when a different sound set was in use, as the instrument definition values differ. Though the values do not match the ones used in Tobal No.1 Preview Disc, the sound set might still have used the same, older sounds. Nonetheless, the music data seems to be compatible with the sound driver used in that particular preview version.
For the curious-minded, the BLACKBGA version has a timestamp of '96 10/30 11:47:30, whereas the retail version was compiled '96 12/18 22:45:10.

PSF download for the edited BLACKBGA Aeris' Theme:
(Preview Disc sound driver with instrument definitions corrected and "Piano" and "Muted Strings" samples added from the retail version.)

Download BLACKBGA Aeris' Theme File: BLACKBGA Aeris' Theme (Beta Soundset).zip (681 KB) (info)

Unused Field Maps

Several field maps go unused: one for the Northern Cave, an empty Cargo Ship, and a hill named 'Trap' of unknown purpose.

Hidden Notes in Graphics

The final image of the end credits of the Japanese release has the date "12/16/1996" scribbled in, which is not visible in-game.

In the German PAL release of the game, the HUD texture set of the submarine minigame carries the note 本当のドイツ用深度 ("real depth for German"). The pointed-to HUD element ("TIEFE" is German for "DEPTH") is specific to the German version of the game. The US and Japanese versions use the DEPTH indicator in the upper-right corner of the image instead.

Programmer Message

A hidden message from a programmer to his wife can be found on Disc 3 in \SNOVA\LASBOSS3.BIN, starting at 0x0000A9AB. D'awwww.

great special thanx to you, ARIKO...from your husband, HIDEJI

Debug Text

The code of the PlayStation version contains strings which presumably belong to debugging functions used during the game's development. There is no known way to access these functions in released versions of the game.

Field Module

Talk=
Push=
Acrs=
Toch=
TochON =
TochOFF=
=recieved
=ret
=ignored
ctrl:
RqLv=
 Tg=
Abst
line=
 off
man=
 dir=
B-R    X=
R-G    X=
G-B    X=
Offset X=
G cons=
G indx=
G glov=
G mapv=
G data err=
Bad Event arg!
S indx=
S glov=
S mapv=
S data err=
Bad Event code!
wait
wait_st=
wait_end=
wait=
set2
lbyte
hbyte

2byte
setx
getx
srchx
biton
bitof
bitxr
line
many lineobj!
sline
linon
slip
if=true
if=false
lif=true
lif=false
ope err=
if2=true
if2=false
lif2
lif2=true
lif2=false
key!
keyon
keyof
key now=
key chk=
key=true
key=false
reqsw
reqew
preq
prqsw
prqew
rqew=no one
rqew=wait
rqew=end
rq=skip
rqw=busy

rqw=busy*
ret=
retto
back
lback
skip
lskip
mjump
evt cmd=
pmjmp
mgame
batle
akao
akao2
music
musvt
musvm
cmusc
music=
bmusc
bmusic=
fmusc
tutor
data=
evt result=
mulck
bgmovie
scrlo
dskcg
btlon
mpdsp
mvcam
gmovr
char
dfanm
ccanm
anime
anim!
canim

canm!
animw
animb
move
fmove
cmove
fcfix
jump
lader
pmova
mova
dira
pdira
tura
ptura
ofstd
ofstl
ofstc
ofstw
turnw
turn
turnc
turnl
turnr
trnlc
trnrc
slidR
sldR2
talkR
tlkR2
msped
asped
gtdir
pgtdr
getai
getaxy
axyzi
pxyzi
visi

kon
xyzi
mpnam
wcls!
wsizw
wsize
wrow
wmove
wrest
wclse
wmode
and2
xor2
plus
plus!
plus2
pls2!
minus
mins!
mins2
mns2!
mul2
div2
remai
rema2
inc!
inc2
inc2!
dec!
dec2
dec2!
randm
rdmsd
bgon
bgoff
bgclr
bgrol
pmvie
movie

mvief
mpjpo
scr2d
scrlc
scrla
scrlp
scrcc
scr2dc
scr2dl
scrlw
stpal
stpls
ldpal
ldpls
cppal
rtpal
adpal
mppal
prtyp
p+ ef=
p+ lf=
prtym
prtye
sptye
gptye
prtyq
prty=TRUE
prty=FALSE
membq
memb=TRUE
memb=FALSE
mmb+-
mmblk
mmbuk
solid
vwoft
join
split
join p0=

join p1=
end setmove
split p1=
set move x=
set move y=
end move
set turn=
end turn
fade
nfade
fadew
idlck
gwcol
swcol
lstmp
shake
stitm
S item=
dlitm
G item=
ckitm
C item=
spcal
clitm
rsglb
spcnm
mvlck
btlck
flitm
flmat
smspd
gmspd
pname
arrow
?????
bgscr
bgdph
smtra
dmtra

cmtra
menu
getpc
mpara
mpra2
mhmmx
hmpmx
gold+
gold-
chgld
chmph
chmst
sttim
wspcl
wnumb
btlmd
btmd2
btrlt
btltb
blink
kawai
kawiw
mes reset=
win limit x=
win limit y=
No mes data!
mes busy=
mpara=
gstr=
glen=
Authr:
Event:
  Go
  Stop
  Step
  Actor OFF
  Info  OFF
Actor:
Word:

These look like remnants of a field event script debugger. Most of the strings are the mnemonics of script opcodes (e.g. "batle", which starts a scripted battle).

World Map Module

NEW  
OLD

JUMP 
FROM

SCR-H
mes reset=

win limit x=
win limit y=

No mes data!
mes busy=

mpara=
gstr=

glen=

Some text related to the windowing/message functions of the world map.

Oddities

The Prison Well

The well in the Corel Prison (officially called "Basement" in the menu) appears to be entirely useless... but there are two little oddities surrounding it.

The Red Man

This weird little guy is on the foreground layer of the pre-rendered graphic, but is masked out by the game code. There is an empty treasure chest roughly in the same location that one may think was only to cover him up, but that is not the case as the chest does not overlap the character. It may be a signature/cameo by one of the CG artists.

Test 0

Strangely, the original Japanese version forgot to remove a test monster from the random encounters in this room. テスト0(ガードハウンド)("Test 0 (Guard Hound)" in Japanese) uses the Guard Hound model and appears in formations of four, but otherwise is identical to the Pyramids in the Debug Room.

As a nod to this, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (the second part of the Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy) would re-introduce Test 0 as a proper enemy, complete with a Bestiary entry that cheekily hints at its origins.

Inaccessible Cave

Ripped scene background showing the inaccessible cave on the right.

In the last screen of Sleeping Forest leading to the Forgotten Capital, a prominent ledge with a cave can be seen with a vine hanging from it, obviously for the player to climb. Despite there being a detour to allow the player to approach the vine, it cannot be interacted with, making the cave inaccessible. Pressing Select shows that the exit is nonfunctional regardless.