Final Fantasy VII’s Biggest Skip Ever Lets You ‘Save’ Aerith Without Cheats

There’s been a massive breakthrough in the world of Final Fantasy VII. Not the new remakes on PlayStation 5, but the original 1997 game. A new skip makes it possible to jump right to Aerith’s death, earlier than players had ever expected. She’ll still die in the pivotal scene, but players can keep her in the party afterward. The discovery has fascinating repercussions not just for speedrunning, but also fans’ obsession with Final Fantasy’s iconic flower girl.

Normally, players don’t encounter Final Fantasy VII’s infamous death scene until the end of disc one, after many hours journeying through the world. However, speedrunners recently found a way to skip to it much earlier in the game, bypassing an entire two hours and shaking up playthroughs of the decades-old RPG in the process. A clip of the discovery in action was recently shared on Twitter by speedrunner Luzbel (via Eurogamer).

“The biggest skip of this game has been discovered and not only is it interesting because it allows you to skip almost the entirety of disc one, but also it allows you to save Aerith for the rest of the game which means its the first time in the history of this game in the regional console version where we can save Aerith without using any cheats,” Luzbel says in the clip.

The trick, found by fellow speerunners AceZephyr and KumaLuzbel, revolves around manipulating how the game stores and tracks terrain data by repeatedly mounting and dismounting a chocobo shortly after leaving Midgar for the first time. This complex process makes it possible for the Cloud in the overworld to walk across the ocean and arrive at the City of Ancients, where the fateful events with Aerith unfold.

Read More: Final Fantasy VII: The Kotaku Retro Review

While the scenes of Sephiroth killing her still pay out as normal, Aerith can also still be used in the player’s party. If she joins the fight immediately following her death, the game will softlock, but if she’s held back she can be kept in reserve until after that section, when players can begin using her again. She won’t have any interaction with the story, but Aerith can remain a companion for the rest of the game. While players have long since discovered other ways of making this happen in various version of the game, what’s notable is that speedrunners found a way to do this in the console version without using cheats.

One snag is that using this trick means getting to the end of disc one while only around level eight or nine, and facing enemies much, much stronger, including a Jenova boss fight that would normally lay waste to such an under-leveled team. As one player notes, however, a water ring found in the lead up to that fight will nullify the boss’ attacks for at least one party member, making it possible to get through the fight. Speedrunners looking to keep moving through the game quickly will likely need to come up with another strategy. Luzbel said the group is currently working on optimizing the groundbreaking skip and documenting it in more detail for others to try.