[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Final Fantasy 7.]
Speedrunners for the original Final Fantasy 7 from 1997 have made a weirdly important discovery for longtime FF7 fans, non-speedrunners included. It turns out, through a series of very difficult in-game maneuvers, Aerith can remain in the player’s party even after her death scene. She can stick around and watch her own climactic, infamous murder at the hands of Sephiroth and then just hang around after that.
As with all speedrunning discoveries, this one was a group effort, although the two names most often shouted out are speedrunners who go by AceZephyr and Kuma. This new skip builds upon knowledge from a previously discovered FF7 speedrun tactic known as the Kalm skip, which (as the name implies) allows the player to skip over an in-game area called Kalm. That skip involves taking advantage of the way that the game reads different types of terrain on the world map, such that the player can walk in certain patterns in order to get to places they weren’t supposed to be able to reach yet. This has opened up the opportunity for other similar skips to be discovered, such as this most recent skip, demonstrated in a proof-of-concept video by Kuma and in a shorter demonstration video by AceZephyr, in which Cloud walks across water (fun stuff). Ultimately, this new skip allows speedrunners to go from Midgar all the way to the City of the Ancients, which could end up shaving off as much as two hours off FF7 speedrun records.
Speedrunning tactics are always a bit esoteric to explain, but I found 4-8Productions’ YouTube video on this topic to be pretty clear and easy to understand.
The funniest thing about this video, and most videos on the topic from speedrunners, is that it presents saving Aerith as little more than a fun side effect of the skip. Ultimately, speedrunners are looking to find glitches and tricks that get them through the game as fast as possible. Whether or not Aerith comes along for the ride is kinda secondary.
Furthermore, since Aerith does still have to witness her own death, you could argue that she isn’t really being “saved” here — even though she’s still depicted as a party member after that scene unfolds. It’s not like you can play the rest of the game normally with Aerith hanging out and fighting alongside you, though. The game will soft-lock any time you enter a battle with Aerith there; that’s why using this skip to successfully complete the game would also involve using various means to skip random battles. So, this is not exactly the “save Aerith” dream that fans believed might be possible for so many years after FF7 was first released. It’s still pretty awesome for speedrunners, though, as it’s a huge discovery with big potential for more.
