The Poignant Echoes of Aerith’s Death in Final Fantasy VII

Just as important, however, is the scene’s visual language. The graphics alternate between the realistic style of the game’s cut scenes and its more rudimentary default. These boxy characters seem dated now – hence the remake. Yet they are also precisely why the death of Aerith is so affecting. There is a disarming idiosyncrasy to their impressionistic bodies. They do not speak out loud, their faces do not emote, but somehow that doesn’t matter. Their simple, evocative gestures are expressive enough; your imagination, along with Nobuo Uematsu’s gentle, mournful score, fills in the rest. Barret looks at Aerith slumped on the ground, and wordlessly shakes his head. Tifa, kneeling, strokes her hair. Cloud, silent, picks up her lifeless little body and carries her to rest. Much as Final Fantasy VII’s twee aesthetic belies the maturity of its themes, so too is there poignancy in the space between innocence and death.

The Impact Left Behind by Aerith’s Departure

Yet for Kitase and his team, it was not enough that players experienced the shock of Aerith dying – they also had to be made to feel what comes next. “When people die in stories, it is often some kind of noble sacrifice that comes at the end,” he says. “But that is not a realistic experience of death: the idea that you have lost something and it’s gone now, you can only look back and regret. You have to live with that. And this is something that games are well placed to deal with.” Emotionally, the death of Aerith splits the world of Final Fantasy VII into before and after. This applies to the plot, too, of course. The fight against Sephiroth intensifies. The characters reflect and grieve. “She always used to talk about the next time,” says Tifa at one point. “She talked about the future more than any of us.” But her loss can also be felt in subtler, more practical ways. It is in the space where her picture used to be in the character select screen. It is in the attacks and weapons particular to her that can no longer be attained or used. It is in all the hours spent levelling her up, which have now passed into nothingness. Grief, like hunger, is absence with presence – and Final Fantasy VII uses the mechanics of the medium to never let you forget it.

Google’s Playful Tribute to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Google has a long history of easter eggs, from HTML trickery to paying homage to Bletchley Park with a very apt decoding animation. I can say with certainty that I wasn’t expecting to see a stampede of Chocobos on my screen today, though. But that’s what happens if you do a search for “Chocobo” or “Final Fantasy”, in celebration of the release of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Along with the adorable retro Chocobos, you’ll also see a few Cloud Strifes, complete with Buster Sword aplenty and some (slightly disorienting) shaking visuals for the links underneath. With the excitement surrounding the long awaited release of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, it makes sense that Google would add this feature as they’ve done for popular titles in the past, such as the Last of Us mushroom easter egg.

How to Experience the Chocobo Stampede Easter Egg

It’s super simple to see this easter egg for yourself. All you need to do is head to Google and search “Chocobo” or “Final Fantasy”. All of the usual results will appear, but there will be a small yellow button in the middle of your browser window, toward the bottom, complete with a Chocobo silhouette. Clicking on this button once will result in one or two Chocobos and the accompanying shakes of the search results beneath, but the fun really starts when you repeatedly spam click. Doing so will result in a stampede of multicolored Chocobos, as well as Cloud making an appearance. Be careful though, maybe it’s just me being a little too over eager, but pressing the button too much may result in slowing your browser down to a standstill, at least for a little while. Still, it’s fun. Give it a try!