La historia completa

En este capítuloShinra drops the Sector 7 plate to crush AVALANCHE's base, killing thousands of people below; Tifa and Barret survive but Biggs, Wedge and Jessie are lost.

The game opens in Midgar, a city built on mako energy that is draining the Planet. Cloud is a mercenary who joins Barret's AVALANCHE for money, but each mission shows him the human cost of Shinra's power.

After meeting Aerith, Cloud is drawn deeper into Shinra's secrets. The company drops the Sector 7 plate onto the slums to crush AVALANCHE, and the party must infiltrate Shinra HQ to save Aerith, where Red XIII joins them. At the top of the building the president is dead, killed by Sephiroth, a legendary SOLDIER the world believed was dead. The party leaves Midgar, and the hunt begins.

Midgar sets the central theme of Final Fantasy VII: the Planet has a life of its own, and Shinra is using up the Lifestream, the Planet's spirit energy, as mako fuel. AVALANCHE's tactic is violent, and the game does not pretend that its cause makes it innocent.

The Sector 7 plate collapse is the story's first great shock. Barret's friends and the people of the slum die because Shinra decides they are an acceptable loss, and the party's guilt shapes the rest of the story.

Aerith's introduction is about hope. She grows flowers in a ruined church and is the last of the Cetra, the Ancients who could talk to the Planet. Shinra wants her because it believes she can lead them to the Promised Land, a place of limitless mako.

Sephiroth appears first as a name and an absence. His murder of the president sets him up as a threat before the player knows what he wants.

En este capítuloIn Kalm, Cloud tells the party about his time in SOLDIER, describing the Nibelheim reactor mission, in which Sephiroth discovered Jenova in the Shinra Mansion and burned the town.

The party reaches Kalm and Cloud tells his story, a flashback that fills the game's first major revelation: five years ago, Sephiroth read the truth about Jenova in the Shinra Mansion and set Nibelheim on fire.

Following Sephiroth's trail, the party crosses the chocobo plains, the Mythril Mine and Fort Condor, and arrives at Shinra's military city of Junon, where they find that Sephiroth is heading for the Temple of the Ancients. The Nibelheim flashback is told in Cloud's voice, and so it is not entirely accurate. The game lets the player trust it, so the later revelation that Cloud's memory is falsified has more impact.

The chase has a structure typical of Japanese role-playing games, where travel makes the world feel large. But each area also shows how Shinra's reach has changed it, from Fort Condor's mako-powered fighters to Junon's guns. The player learns that Sephiroth is not looking for revenge on Shinra but for something to do with the Planet and with Jenova, which he calls his mother.

En este capítuloIn the Corel Prison, Dyne, Barret's former friend, who lost his wife Eleanor and went mad with grief, tries to kill Barret and dies in a fall.

The journey passes through North Corel, where Barret is reunited with the people who were hurt by Shinra's reactor. In the nearby prison, he faces Dyne, who has lost everything. At the Gold Saucer, the party has a break from the chase. Cait Sith joins them, and the player takes a date with one of the party members.

Barret's story makes him more than a loud revolutionary. His fight with Shinra began when his town was destroyed, and Dyne's tragedy shows how that loss can destroy a person. The Gold Saucer is the game's most colourful place, built with Shinra money, and it shows how the company keeps ordinary people entertained and distracted.

Cait Sith is operated by Reeve, who works for Shinra, which means a spy has joined the party. His motives turn out to be more complicated than that.

En este capítuloAt Cosmo Canyon, Bugenhagen explains the Lifestream, Meteor and Holy, and Red XIII tells how his father Seto died defending the village.

Cosmo Canyon is a place of philosophy. Bugenhagen teaches the party that life returns to the Planet after death and that Meteor is a calamity and Holy a possible answer. In Nibelheim, Tifa remembers events differently from Cloud, and in the mansion basement they find Vincent. In Rocket Town, Cid and his rocket complete the party's travel tools.

The Lifestream explanation is the game's theology: every living thing's energy returns to the Planet, and every drop of mako Shinra uses is a piece of that cycle. The game's ecological theme is expressed through a spiritual one. The Nibelheim return is where the story begins to turn. Tifa corrects Cloud's account, and the player starts to suspect that his memory cannot be trusted.

Cid is a pilot whose dream of space was stopped by Shinra's priorities, and his sharp temper hides regret. The airship he provides opens up the world.

En este capítuloIn the Temple of the Ancients the party finds the Black Materia, a stone that can summon Meteor; Cloud, under Sephiroth's influence, hands it over.

The party chases Sephiroth to the Temple of the Ancients, and there Cloud loses control and gives him the Black Materia. Aerith has realised what is happening and leaves to go to the Forgotten Capital to pray for Holy. At the Forgotten Capital, Sephiroth kills Aerith in front of the party. Her White Materia falls into the water, and the game moves into its second half.

Aerith's death is one of the best-known scenes in video games. Her prayer is not completed, but the story shows later that it did not fail. Cloud's loss of control is a result of the Jenova cells in his body and Sephiroth's influence. The scene shows that he is vulnerable, which the later Lifestream sequence explains.

The mourning scene has no combat, and it lets the player feel loss before the story speeds up.

En este capítuloSephiroth uses the Black Materia to summon Meteor, and Shinra's Weapons, giant creatures born from the Planet, are awakened.

With Meteor in the sky, the Planet is in danger and Shinra's headquarters is attacked by the Weapons. Cloud, who has lost his sense of self, is helped by Tifa inside the Lifestream. There they find the truth: Cloud was never a SOLDIER. He took on Zack's memories after Zack died protecting him. With a restored identity, Cloud returns to lead the party.

The Lifestream sequence is a psychological story told as a journey. Tifa is both guide and witness, and her gentle questions let Cloud rebuild the 'self' that Sephiroth had broken. Zack's role gives the love triangle a tragic dimension, since Aerith's first love and Cloud's best friend are tied through Cloud's borrowed memories.

The Weapons are the Planet's response to Meteor, and Shinra's attempts to stop Meteor reveal that even the villains fear the Planet's destruction.

En este capítuloThe party travels to the Northern Crater, where Sephiroth waits in the Planet's core.

The party descends into the Northern Crater to face Sephiroth. After defeating Jenova and Safer Sephiroth, Holy rises, but cannot stop Meteor alone. The Lifestream rises to join Holy and the Meteor is destroyed. The epilogue jumps five hundred years to show that life continues.

The final battle is a battle against a god in the making, and the game explains that Sephiroth wanted to merge with the Lifestream and rule it. Holy was released by Aerith's prayer, which means her death was not in vain. The story is built so that sacrifice and renewal are connected. The five-hundred-year epilogue shows Midgar overtaken by nature, a symbol that the Planet has survived Shinra.