Aerith dies. If you recognize one factor about Ultimate Fantasy 7, it’s most likely that Aerith dies. The praying lady will get minimize down by the man with the large sword. There’s a cause why this pivotal story beat is among the most well-known spoilers in gaming: it’s a second that’s regularly shocked gamers since 1997.
Video video games had killed off important characters earlier than Ultimate Fantasy 7, however this was completely different. The resonance Aerith had with followers is incomparable, and the emotional affect of her loss of life left many gamers determined for a resurrection. Over 25 years, hearsay turned fable, fable turned hoax, and finally hope turned a strategy to genuinely save the flower lady from Midgar. That is the within story of the gamers who re-wrote destiny and resurrected Aerith Gainsborough.
Aerith Gainsborough is among 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 big 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 character that made followers fall in love along with her.
“From the second you meet her she’s charming, she’s very candy, however she has just a little little bit of spunk right here and there,” says Ally Tamara, a Ultimate Fantasy fan and cosplayer from Canada. “And he or she was simply a type of characters that instantly I personally fell in love with.”
“I feel she’s a extremely, actually improbable character the place you possibly can’t choose her primarily based on her look,” says Aequorinn, a UK-based cosplayer. “I sort of assumed as a result of she attire actually conservatively, and also you see the images of her praying, I believed she was going to be fairly candy but in addition sort of critical and boring and type 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 severely, or fairly she’s energetic and tries to get everybody else to take pleasure in it alongside along with her.”
Aerith’s loss of life comes out of nowhere, and occurs simply as Ultimate Fantasy 7 gears up for its apocalyptic second half. Having realized that villain Sephiroth plans to drive a meteor to crash into the planet as a part of his try to ascend to godhood, protagonist Cloud and his buddies head to the Forgotten Metropolis. There, Aerith will name upon the last word white magic, Holy, which she hopes will shield 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 group, 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 cause, possibly it’s her character and simply who she is, it is life-changing. I nonetheless have not gotten over her loss of life years later.”
“Aerith does die activating the Holy spell, so there may be this temptation to consider it as some noble sacrifice, but it surely’s actually not,” explains Aequorinn. “It is only a horrible tragedy that occurs. And I feel that is fairly completely different to how loss of life is normally dealt with in video video games, definitely at this cut-off date. 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 celebration. She would have liked that, however she by no means will get to journey that airship.”
Aerith’s loss of life is a vital and irreversible second within the story of Ultimate Fantasy 7. However whereas she might have died within the sport, Aerith endures by way of fan fiction, fan artwork, and – in fact – cosplay.
“I bear in mind saying to myself as soon as I turned a cosplayer, I used to be about 20 years outdated after I truly 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 a minimum of right 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 point out my appreciation for a sport I actually loved, but in addition simply because I really like the character a lot.
“Since then, the Ultimate Fantasy 7 group has change into such a large a part of my life, so I really feel prefer it’s made the cosplay actually particular to me.”
The improbable creations of Ultimate Fantasy followers are only one a part of Aerith’s story, although. For those who have been ever a faculty child in the course of the days of the unique PlayStation, then you definitely’ll virtually definitely know that there was a a lot greater thriller round Aerith’s loss of life than simply the right way to create a worthy epitaph.
“I bear in mind after I was in elementary faculty, as a result of considered one of my greatest buddies used to play it,” remembers Tamara. “And he stated ‘My brother informed me there is a approach that you just may be capable to convey 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 making an attempt […], was you needed to have the max quantity of Phoenix Downs saved up in your stock, in order that approach by the point you bought to her loss of life you would resurrect her.
“However that is not all,” she continues. “After her loss of life you needed to get to the subsequent save level, hit begin, and then you definitely hit L1, R1, Circle, and then you definitely’d get the title sequence and it was like ‘Oh, right here she is, she’s magically in your group’. 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 realized about out of your faculty good friend or an web message board. You will have heard that Tifa will sacrifice herself to save lots of Aerith in the event you max out the suitable relationship stat. Or maybe that unlocking Aerith’s last Restrict Break earlier than her encounter with Sephiroth will forestall her from dying. Or possibly 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 possibly can then use a fully-upgraded remedy materia to revive her. All these claims have been completely different, however ultimately they have been all the identical: bogus. False. Unfaithful. There isn’t any strategy to save Aerith.
It went viral and there was folks upset. There was positively folks 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 generally catch a short 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 keeping with Oddheader, a YouTuber specialised in online game mysteries, there was truly a grain of reality in one of many longstanding rumours. To resurrect Aerith, he defined, it’s important to gather three gadgets – the Earth Harp, Desert Rose, and Information Ebook – after which struggle all opponents on the Gold Saucer’s 3D battle area (together with a secret, invisible fifth enemy). Then it’s important to give the three gadgets to the outdated man in Kalm, after which head to the ghost of Aerith within the church. Then it’s important 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 after I put that video up, all of the sudden it exploded. It went to one million actually fast. On that first day, I bought some nervousness about it as a result of I figured it was going to go principally out to my viewers and as an alternative it went out. It went viral and there was folks upset. There was positively folks upset.”
Why have been folks 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 truly primarily based on a remark that I bought,” explains Rigdon Jr. “I get submissions on a regular basis they usually’re faux and foolish issues, however that was the primary one the place I checked out that and I used to be like, ‘Nicely, possibly there’s a glitch. I have not heard of that.’ Then in fact, to seek out out that it was false, I used to be like, ‘Nicely, I believed it, so I feel I can persuade sufficient people 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 Ebook to the outdated man in Kalm would revive Aerith’s glitch ghost within the church. It was one other false hearsay, in fact, however Rigdon Jr. noticed a possibility to mix that fable with loads of reality to create a video that wasn’t only a prank, however one thing primarily based on genuinely attention-grabbing trivia.
“I blended numerous authentic discoveries with faux 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. For example, I make an enormous deal about all the additional cross-dressing dialogue that was knowledge mined from the sport, which was discovered many years later.
“There’s additionally the hidden opponent that may very well 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 believed that was so cool.”
Fascinatingly, the weirdest a part of Oddheader’s video is definitely rooted in truth. 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 primarily based on one other discovery the place in the event you hack right into a debug room, you would discuss to her and he or she had particular dialogue and there was quite a few choices,” reveals Rigdon Jr. “One of many choices, I feel, was like, ‘What is that this place?’ One thing alongside these traces. Then she’s like, ‘Oh, do not you recognize? That is Hades.’”
“However that line, ‘That is Hades,’ that turned just a little little bit of a meme on the channel,” he says. “It was positively like, ‘What if that line was alleged to be within the sport?’ As a result of it might make sense that traces that you’d discover within the debug room have been truly meant to be within the sport.”
In fact, for each reality in Oddheader’s video there’s a lie.
“I full-on faked {a magazine} quote to point out the journal,” laughs Rigdon Jr. “I really feel dangerous. I quoted all these faux quotes and attributed them to folks. I am like, I hope they did not get mad discovering out that I faked all these items.”
Then there’s the faux 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 title, 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 group, truly. 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 every thing,” he explains. “It was actually finished 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 all of the sudden she’s making your console doing issues that you just would not count on. So it was positively impressed largely by the thought of creepypastas.”
I am not upset that I’ve possibly contributed to the online game mythology on the market.
The video went dwell on April 1st, 2019 and rapidly turned considered 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 consider it.’ Then instantly all these folks replied. They’re like, ‘Examine the date of the video, dude.’”
“What’s so humorous to me, I believed it was a useless giveaway when Aerith on the finish says, ‘Let’s roll, homie.’ I believed to everyone that will be the clear getaway,” he says.
Right this moment, the video has over two million views, and continues to idiot folks. That doesn’t trouble Rigdon Jr., although.
“I am not upset that I’ve possibly 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, but it surely’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] because the sport has come out. I feel actually because the sport got here out, folks have been making that legend up.”
In its personal approach, the legend retains Aerith alive. However whereas it looks like the e book is properly and actually closed on any hidden in-game methodology of saving Aerith, there may be some reality in the concept a glitch may very well be the key to defying loss of life.
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 during which you recruit Yuffie is someway related to your earlier sport over state. That connection will be exploited to ‘warp’ from the Yuffie encounter again to the battle you failed. And that may very well be virtually any battle; even a boss struggle from the very finish of the sport. The potential for speedrunning was apparent, however gamers quickly realised that this ‘Yuffie Warping’ glitch may very well be used to skip the Forgotten Metropolis and stop Aerith’s loss of life.
However the results of the glitch is only mechanical. It retains Aerith within the celebration, and he or she 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 position within the story. She is soulless.
To really give Aerith life after loss of life, her story needed to be re-written. The code and script of the sport wanted to be modified to help you save her life and struggle alongside her to guard the planet. And that’s precisely what occurred.
New Risk is an bold overhaul for the PC model of Ultimate Fantasy 7. It’s the work of Stewart Melville, a modder higher referred to as SegaChief, and has a very refreshed strategy to battles, bosses, character development, and synthetic intelligence.
“I feel what I actually wished to do was simply shock folks and simply maintain them ,” says Melville. “Add little issues in and possibly not doc them simply in order that they’ll uncover them on their very own. That is how the Aerith factor happened 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 turned more and more extra superior and sophisticated. The sport was cut 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 completely different from these within the authentic sport. There are model new conversations. Occasions play out in several methods. Even the Wall Market cross-dressing state of affairs is changed with a difficult multi-phase battle in Don Corneo’s dungeon. However the change New Risk 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 outdated joke, the Phoenix Down, which was a little bit of an eye-roller,” says Melville. “But it surely was normally fairly humorous on streams as a result of folks in chat would say that beforehand, ‘Simply use the Phoenix Down,’ after which they might watch because it truly occurred and also you’d get a great pop off on it. However afterward I made a decision to try 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 Risk, Aerith is a part of the Jenova Life boss battle that instantly follows her loss of life. After a number 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 a complete new alternate route by way of the ultimate half of the sport; one during which Aerith stays a core a part of the mission to save lots of the planet.
“I simply figured it might be good to have the gameplay mechanic do it fairly than have a dialogue possibility or one thing, or another requirement that it’s important to go do a fetch quest or one thing,” says Melville. “I simply wished it to be a bit extra attention-grabbing.”
However understanding the right way 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 after 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 then you definitely’re good to go.
“However there was a scene in the direction of the tip of disc two which I knew was going to be problematic,” he remembers. “I feel it was Cosmo Canyon, after they begin speaking about Aerith and what she was possibly doing earlier than she handed away. And I feel that was the large drawback as a result of you possibly can’t have that when she’s standing there so it’s important to consider one thing. So I feel among the finest methods of getting out of a plot gap is to revisit stuff that is gone earlier than and search for one thing that you need to use. And I feel one of many issues was she wasn’t certain 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 a must 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 appeared on the dialogue rather a lot, making an attempt to get the patterns and the way it was written,” he says. “It is not how I’d normally write dialogue for characters, the best way the sport presents dialogue, and video games themselves have a distinct approach of presenting dialogue to, say, a e book. So it was only a case of making an attempt to imitate that and get into the rhythm of it in order that it might try 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 fastidiously re-script the state of affairs with a purpose to strike the suitable tone.
“It is scenes like that I discover a bit extra awkward,” he says. “It’s a must 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 possibly get a bit too melodramatic so I try to discover a balancing act if I can or simply try to not go to 1 excessive to the opposite, try to make it too lighthearted or try to make it too melodramatic. Possibly try to discover that center floor.”
It was additionally necessary to maintain Aerith’s sense of journey alive, too, and so not every thing may very well be focussed on her relationship with the planet and plot. You get to see her go just a little wild in the course of the siege of Junon when she beats Scarlett over the top with a chair; a enjoyable reference to Ultimate Fantasy 7 Remake. However one of the best instance of New Risk’s strategy to writing will be discovered in the course of the flashback to Zack’s loss of life.
“I wanted to discover a place to place every character’s restrict breaks,” says Melville. “So it at all times begins normally from a gameplay factor, […] However then I additionally was engaged on a request that individuals wished Aerith to be a bit extra concerned within the story previous disc one, so I used to be on the lookout for alternatives to try this. I used to be at Cloud’s scene the place he is speaking about Zack and that is when it clicked that possibly that is a great place for that to be positioned.”
With Aerith now within the celebration, this sequence is not only Cloud placing collectively the final items of his fractured reminiscence, but in addition Aerith lastly discovering the tragic destiny of her boyfriend. As the 2 mirror on the lack of Zack, their last Restrict Breaks are unlocked. It’s a poignant strategy to conclude their private tales.
Because of New Risk, Aerith lastly will get to journey the Highwind and embrace her love of journey. However regardless of the mod’s reputation and success, Melville sometimes wonders if bringing Aerith again from the useless was the suitable name.
“Typically I remorse including the characteristic in, if that is sensible,” he says. “Say in the event you’re speaking about [how] I’ve made some enhancements to how the dialogue’s offered, after which any person fires again, ‘However you probably did this factor, so how are you going to say the story’s higher?’ You may by no means say it is an goal enchancment, actually.”
“What I’ve realized through the years is that individuals have completely different expectations of what they need out of it,” he provides. “Some persons are replaying it to benefit from the story once more, so a characteristic like that would not be significantly welcome. Different persons are on the lookout for one thing new and attention-grabbing, or they’ve heard about that characteristic they usually wish to expertise it, issues like that. So it’s important to maintain all of that in thoughts while you’re making issues like this. However I feel for the remake, they need to possibly watch out about doing issues like that or they will get fairly a little bit of backlash.”
Considerably just like New Risk, the continuing official Ultimate Fantasy 7 Remake sequence is a whole re-imagining of the unique sport. Coping with themes of destiny and future, the re-written occasions see Cloud and Aerith select a really completely different path. To this point, that has already resulted in Zack surviving his encounter with the Shinra guards who killed him within the authentic sport. And so it stands to cause that the upcoming second sport within the trilogy – Ultimate Fantasy 7 Rebirth – might go anyplace, together with avoiding Aerith’s loss of life. Simply the potential for 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 identical time each of their deaths have been so monumental and had such a big impact on the sequence 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. All the things that occurred was meant to occur, and clearly modified lots of our lives and plenty of of our gaming experiences. The truth that so many individuals who discuss Aerith’s loss of life have it up there as one of the vital monumental deaths in a online game speaks volumes.”
“I feel [Aerith’s death] will go forward however possibly not in the identical place,” says Stewart Melville. “As a result of I feel the entire concept of it was, when 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 approach of recreating engagement, simply not realizing the place issues are going to go. And I feel they’ve succeeded in doing that, possibly in a little bit of a heavy-handed approach, however they’ve efficiently made it so that you just’re not fairly certain 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 for Aerith surviving. “I’d like to see it. It could positively be a sport 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 persons are experiencing Aerith as I really feel she was meant to be.
Whatever the remake’s eventual path, considered one of its enduring legacies could have been offering many, many extra hours for gamers to get to know and recognize considered one of Ultimate Fantasy’s most iconic and necessary characters.
“I feel lots of people do bear in mind her from her loss of life scene within the authentic sport, however due to that there is at all times this sort of disappointment when folks discuss Aerith, they sort of do not discuss how she is within the sport, however they discuss 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 persons 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 sport. She’s not simply headed in the direction of this loss of life sentence, however she’s actually energetic and he or she simply brings this actually massive sense of journey to Ultimate Fantasy 7.”
Regardless of occurring over 25 years in the past, Aerith’s loss of life stays one of the vital memorable and mentioned moments within the historical past of video video games. The emotional affect of her loss is revealing; solely a really unforgettable character may very well be the place to begin for considered 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 might have died. However Aerith lives on due to the enduring love of the Ultimate Fantasy 7 group.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK Information and Options Editor. Dale Driver is the Government 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.
