On January 17, 2022, the Italian Senate hosted a Zoom meeting about the Transparent Public Service. Just when Nobel Prize-winning physicist Giorgio Parisi was about to be introduced, a user named Alex Spence “zoombombed” the meeting with at least 30 seconds of a CG pornographic video featuring Tifa Lockhart that was originally made by Patreon user JuicyNeko.

The news spread mere days after the incident, and Tifa became the subject of memes that associated her with Italy, including being considered an Italian video game mascot that’s on par with Mario.

A hidden programmer message is hidden in the files of Disk 3, stating:

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

In the very first Japanese release of the game, at the bottom of the well in Corel Prison, a rare debug enemy known as "Test 0" that was accidentally left in the game on its initial release can be randomly encountered. This encounter does not require cheats or hacks to occur, although GameShark codes can be used to access every other debug enemy battle in the game. This battle was removed from all future releases of the game. "The Completely Unauthorized Final Fantasy VII Ultimate Guide" by Versus Books, released in 1997, features an entry on this enemy (note that the HP listing in the guide scan is incorrect; Type 0 has 30000 HP).

According to the game's art director Yūsuke Naora, he liked how his design of the city of Midgar turned out, having envisioned the city in his head as a pizza while he was designing it.

After the first AVALANCHE mission at the start of the game, Barret will reference this inspiration when talking to Cloud about the upper plate of Midgar:


Additionally, the name of the song "Underneath the Rotting Pizza", which prominently plays in many of the slum areas in Midgar, is a reference to its design.

In the early development stages, producer Tetsuya Nomura planned to have only three playable characters in the entire game. However, during a phone call with Yoshinori Kitase, they decided that one of the three characters should be permanently killed off. After the staff chose Aerith, Nomura created Tifa as another possible love interest for Cloud.

In an interview, Tetsuya Nomura stated that he envisioned Cloud and Sephiroth's relationship to be like that of Musashi Miyamoto and Sasaki Kojiro. This influenced not only their appearances, but also the appearances of their swords.

"For me, it’s of course Cloud and Sephiroth. My concept for Sephiroth from the beginning was that everything about him would be kakkoii. His battle movements, and all his in-game scenes too. My image of the relationship between Cloud AND Sephiroth was that of Musashi Miyamoto and Sasaki Kojiro, and I had them in mind when I designed their appearance, as well as their swords. Of course Cloud is Musashi, and Sephiroth is Kojiro."

One of the advertisements for the game reads "Someone please get the guys who make cartridge games a cigarette and a blindfold." and "Good thing, if it were available on cartridge, it'd retail for around $1,200." This was a jab at Nintendo and their cartridge-based platform the Nintendo 64.

During the Motorcycle Chase FMV, Midgar is incorrectly spelled Midgal on the side of the truck door. This is probably because the letters "R" and "L" are commonly mistranslated from Japanese to English.

According to character designer Tetsuya Nomura, Aerith's dress was specifically designed so that it used a low number of polygons. Cloud was originally designed with slicked-back hair for the same reason.

Final Fantasy VII heavily references the Lurian Kabbalah [kah-ball-a]. Kabbalah is a Jewish school of thought that also refers to the mysticism of Judaism and Gnosticism, a collection of ancient religions. Not only does FFVII draw from the beliefs of these religions, but it incorporates what actually happened to the followers in real life, as well as using Hebrew in the formation of character names. A few examples are:

• The Gnostics were persecuted, like the Cetra.
• Sephiroth's name comes from the term Sefirot (meaning "counting" or "enumeration"), which refers to the ten aspects of God in the Tree of Life.
• The sixth sefira in Tree of Life is beauty, known in Hebrew as Tif'eret {ti-fah-ret}. It is possible that this is how Tifa's name was derived.

The original idea for the game had it set in modern New York City in the year 1999, and was intended to have a "detective story" theme, with a character called "Hot Blooded Detective Joe". The early script had him chasing the main characters, who would then blow up the city of Midgar.

One of the early art directions of the game was going to use 2D pixel-based graphics. There was one concept image early in the development featuring an isometric view in this style using Final Fantasy VI character designs, including Locke.

The meaning of "Safer Sephiroth", the name of the final boss -- not counting the unloseable battle that follows -- has been the subject of debate. Many assume that it's a mistranslation of "Seraph Sephiroth", as Sephiroth's form bears an explicit resemblance to the six-winged Seraph angels (particularly as depicted in the painting "Stigmatization of St. Francis" by Giotto).

However this is not true, as the Japanese name is romanized as Sēfa Sefirosu. The actual translation is 'Sepher', which is Hebrew for the word Book. Sephiroth's name itself is based on the Hebrew word Səphīrōth, which can be translated as Numbers. The name Sepher Sephiroth can thus be translated as "Book of Numbers", one of the books in the Hebrew Bible.

Cait Sith resembles the Esper "Stray" from Final Fantasy VI, which was also called Cait Sith in the original Japanese version. The name itself comes from Celtic mythology, and means "faerie cat".

During the events of Cloud's flashback to Nibelheim, the player can go into Tifa's house. Tifa isn't home, but the player still has the ability to explore her entire house. If the player interacts with the wardrobe in Tifa's room, they will find a joke item called the "Orthopaedic Underwear." The Tifa listening to the story in the present will scold Cloud for joking whilst he is retelling his story.

The unusually named boss "Bizarro-Sephiroth" was a result of a mistranslation. The boss is actually known as "Rebirth-Sephiroth", but due to the letters "B" and "V" being interchangeable in Japanese and "th" often being translated as "S" (the same issue led to Aerith being known as Aeris), it ended up being translated as "Reverse-Sephiroth."

The translators then replaced the word "Reverse" with "Bizarro", which in the west can be used as a slang term to refer to something that is opposite or backwards. It is derived from the character Bizarro from the Superman comics, who was an imperfect clone of Superman who consciously did things the opposite way they were expected.

Both Ruby and Emerald WEAPON were not in the original Japanese version of the game. They were added later for the international versions of the game.

Cloud's Buster Sword was originally a lot smaller and thinner with only one Materia slot. Tetsuya Nomura's original vision of the Buster Sword was unrefined steel, and he referred to it as "the Giant Kitchen Knife".

The intro to Sephiroth's theme, "One-Winged Angel", was inspired by the intro to the song "Purple Haze" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Due to both Vincent and Yuffie being optional recruits, they do not appear in the game's ending cutscene.