Final Fantasy VII/Glitches and errors

Technically, Final Fantasy VII is not a perfect game. There are few odd glitches here and there - nothing major in this area.

The game also has flaws in story, cutscene videos and graphics. There are also debatable flaws (or are they flaws at all, just some ingenuity from the designers?) in the story; These shouldn't be discussed here but in story analysis section.

W-Item bug
The W-Item materia has a flaw in it. During the combat, if you choose to use an item, then select another item of the same type, but don't actually use it, just cancel the whole thing, you end up with one more item than you started with. This chould be used to get tons and tons of megalixirs, greens, etc.

Aerith's ghost
When visiting Aerith's church in the second CD or later, one can spot a "ghost" of Aerith right when entering the room. The ghost will only appear for a split second when visiting the church for the first time.

The debate rages on: Is this a glitch or an intended feature? It is most likely a glitch, on following grounds:


 * I could have sworn seen several times people appear and disappear mysteriously when entering an area in FF7. My coffee-drugged brain also seems to remember seeing one of the kids in the church teleport mysteriously, so this area may be glitchy by nature.
 * It is actually possible to enter the church again in Disc 1, before starting to infiltrate the Shin-Ra building and rescuing her. She's ghostin' and poltergeistin' before she even died!
 * Moreover, if the designers really wanted to make Aerith appear here after her death, they could have done so with a little more noticeable effect. Now, the net effect is more spooky than memorable.

Unless confirmed by Square as an intentional feature, we have to conclude it is just a glitch.

However, no one can deny that this is an appropriate apparition. Let's face it, seeing a brief flashback of poor Aerith by her beloved flower bed is quite touching. It is further made more appropriate by Aerith's appearance in the movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, especially the end.

Flaws in FMVs

 * The most debate-inducing FMV flaw: When Sephiroth descends from the skies, he's wearing gloves. When he stabs Aerith, the gloves are gone. A simple continuity flaw, or an indication of something more sinister?
 * When the Shin-Ra rocket launches, there's a brief shot of the side of the rocket. It seems to be horizontally mirrored.
 * When the party are escaping from Midgar HQ, Tifa and Aeris steal a truck. If you look closely at the text on the side of the truck it says "Midgal" instead of "Midgar".

Background graphics

 * Outside of the ropeway station in Corel, a sign says "Amusement Park", but it's in Greek letters.
 * In Nibelheim reactor, a monster breaks loose from its tank, but when the room is seen the next time, the tank is undisturbed. (Or maybe Cloud just plain remembers it wrong, or was just imagining the monster...)
 * Sister Ray has its name painted on its side even before it is moved to Midgar and Scarlet gives it that name. You can see this name on the side of the cannon when Tifa escapes the gas chamber.

Problems in Story

 * When visiting Gongaga, we spot Scarlet and Tseng looking for a Huge Materia. The odd thing is, you can visit the place any time after escaping from Desert Prison, or in the CD 2. So depending on the context and time you see the cutscene they're looking for either the Black Materia or one of the three Huge Materias, even when they aren't necessarily needing them yet for anything! Either way the scene isn't wrong as such, it's just ambiguous.
 * When Cloud is finally rescued, he apologises about lying about his military career and ever reaching SOLDIER. When you go out right after that and talk to Yuffie, he rambles on and on about how he dealt with motion sickness in SOLDIER.

Translation Errors

 * When Cloud first meets Aerith after he falls through the roof of her church, the young girl tells him he gave her a fright, since he almost fell on her. However, since Japanese being somewhat ambiguous with its lack of any person endings for its verbs, Aerith, still referring to the church, proceeds to give Cloud a good telling-off about how scared she was when the church almost fell on her.