Ever because the launch of the unique Final Fantasy 7, followers have agonized over the sport’s greatest, best-known tragic second: Aerith’s dying. May she be saved? Was it doable? For years, rumors have abounded about secret methods to save her and maintain her within the social gathering. And now, speedrunners have discovered a path to holding her round that will even be an enormous time-saver.
Found by speedrunners AceZephyr and Kuma and publicized by Luzbel, a brand new skip permits gamers to leap from Midgar all the way in which to Forgotten Capital with Aerith nonetheless within the social gathering. As a result of it skips the a part of the sport the place Aerith leaves the social gathering, she sticks round, and in the end witnesses her personal dying by the hands of Sephiroth solely to be part of the battle towards Jenova Life moments later.
The largest skip in FF7 has been discovered. pic.twitter.com/HXVfrbOJd4
— Luzbel / ルズベル (@Luzbel789) October 23, 2024
The precise skip is fairly complicated and the kinks are nonetheless being labored out. It includes utilizing a Chocobo on the world map to trick the sport into letting you stroll on the ocean, after which Cloud merely strolls throughout the water over to Forgotten Capital with out doing any of the opposite stuff required to get there. The cutscene there performs as regular, however the social gathering composition stays what it was earlier than. Kuma’s got a tutorial on YouTube here for anybody thinking about making an attempt it themselves.
Sadly, there are lots of asterisks on this skip really working. For one, for those who do not use a model of the sport that permits you to disable encounters, the skip is inconceivable, as a result of entering into an encounter whereas strolling on the water will softlock the sport. And since Aerith is not supposed to be within the social gathering at this stage, the sport additionally softlocks at any time when there is a scene with the social gathering that she should not be concerned in.
The neighborhood is at the moment working to attempt to discover methods round this, together with one agonizing five-hour effort from AceZephyr utilizing pause buffering to keep away from encounters whereas strolling throughout the water. Hopefully they discover one, as a result of if it ever turns into viable it can supposedly save runners round two hours, permitting them to blast by way of disc one quicker than ever.
If this has sparked your curiosity in Final Fantasy 7 once more, you do not want to speedrun the unique to get pleasure from it. Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth are fairly unbelievable too, and collectively they cowl a sliiiiightly totally different model of all of the story that speedrunners are skipping on ye olde disc one. We gave Final Fantasy 7 Remake an 8/10, and Rebirth acquired a 9/10. Our reviewer wrote: “Final Fantasy VII Rebirth impressively builds off of what Remake set in movement as each a best-in-class action-RPG filled with thrilling problem and depth, and as an awe-inspiring recreation of a world that has meant a lot to so many for therefore lengthy.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You will discover her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Received a narrative tip? Ship it to rvalentine@ign.com.