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Just like any other game before it, Final Fantasy VII originally started out with a bunch of ideas and features that didn’t make it into the final game. As developer progresses, ideas evolve or are left on the cutting-room floor. That includes aspects of the main character, and in the case of Final Fantasy VII, the protagonist was originally quite different.

According to the dev team, the original plan for Final Fantasy VII’s Cloud was to have him as a “berserker,” or an uncontrollable warrior. Cloud’s left arm would have been “sealed away” by his bracelet, and would only use his right hand to swing his Buster Sword. As for the sword, it would have been held on his back by a magnet. Eventually, the bracelet would have been broken, overflowing Cloud’s body berserker energy. This would have let Cloud swing the Buster Sword with the power of both hands.

All of this was left behind during the development of Final Fantasy VII, but you can certainly see how some of the character design hints at those early ideas. Who knows, perhaps Square Enix will revisit this idea in another Final Fantasy story down the road, or use it for a completely new game altogether!

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conangiga

1y ago

Well, they kept the magnet thing at least.
And the sealed arm sounds more like a bad case of chuunibyou nowadays.