There’s been a large breakthrough on the planet of Remaining Fantasy VII. Not the brand new remakes on PlayStation 5, however the unique 1997 sport. A brand new skip makes it attainable to leap proper to Aerith’s loss of life, sooner than gamers had ever anticipated. She’ll nonetheless die within the pivotal scene, however gamers can maintain her within the celebration afterward. The invention has fascinating repercussions not only for speedrunning, but in addition followers’ obsession with Remaining Fantasy’s iconic flower woman.
Usually, gamers don’t encounter Remaining Fantasy VII’s notorious loss of life scene till the top of disc one, after many hours journeying by way of the world. Nonetheless, speedrunners not too long ago discovered a technique to skip to it a lot earlier within the sport, bypassing a whole two hours and shaking up playthroughs of the decades-old RPG within the course of. A clip of the invention in motion was not too long ago shared on Twitter by speedrunner Luzbel (through Eurogamer).
“The most important skip of this sport has been found and never solely is it fascinating as a result of it means that you can skip nearly the whole lot of disc one, but in addition it means that you can save Aerith for the remainder of the sport which implies its the primary time within the historical past of this sport within the regional console model the place we will save Aerith with out utilizing any cheats,” Luzbel says within the clip.
The trick, discovered by fellow speerunners AceZephyr and KumaLuzbel, revolves round manipulating how the sport shops and tracks terrain knowledge by repeatedly mounting and dismounting a chocobo shortly after leaving Midgar for the primary time. This complicated course of makes it attainable for the Cloud within the overworld to stroll throughout the ocean and arrive on the Metropolis of Ancients, the place the fateful occasions with Aerith unfold.
Learn Extra: Remaining Fantasy VII: The Kotaku Retro Evaluation
Whereas the scenes of Sephiroth killing her nonetheless pay out as regular, Aerith also can nonetheless be used within the participant’s celebration. If she joins the battle instantly following her loss of life, the sport will softlock, but when she’s held again she may be stored in reserve till after that part, when gamers can start utilizing her once more. She gained’t have any interplay with the story, however Aerith can stay a companion for the remainder of the sport. Whereas gamers have lengthy since found different methods of creating this occur in varied model of the sport, what’s notable is that speedrunners discovered a means to do that within the console model with out utilizing cheats.
One snag is that utilizing this trick means attending to the top of disc one whereas solely round degree eight or 9, and dealing with enemies a lot, a lot stronger, together with a Jenova boss battle that may usually lay waste to such an under-leveled group. As one participant notes, nonetheless, a water ring discovered within the lead as much as that battle will nullify the boss’ assaults for a minimum of one celebration member, making it attainable to get by way of the battle. Speedrunners seeking to maintain shifting by way of the sport rapidly will doubtless must provide you with one other technique. Luzbel stated the group is presently engaged on optimizing the groundbreaking skip and documenting it in additional element for others to attempt.
