Compilation of Final Fantasy VII allusions

Throughout the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, there have been numerous allusions, particularly to the number seven.

Final Fantasy series

 * The ultimate black magic and white magic spells in Final Fantasy VII — Holy and Meteor — refer to the recurring magic spells in previous Final Fantasy titles. Final Fantasy VII was the first game in the series to not let the player cast the Holy spell in battle. Holy being a reference to the ultimate white magic spell from previous games was lost in translation since no US Final Fantasy before Final Fantasy VII called Holy by its real name, it being renamed to "Fade", "White", and "Pearl".
 * Sephiroth's weapon, the Masamune alludes to the Masamune being the most powerful weapon in both Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II.
 * The Huge Materia in Final Fantasy VII resemble those of elemental Crystals, a recurring theme in Final Fantasy since the first game. There are four elemental crystals, as there are four Huge Materia, and their colors correspond to the traditional elemental crystals as well.

Final Fantasy

 * Vincent's final Limit Break, Chaos, alludes to and even somewhat resembles the final boss of the same name in the original Final Fantasy.

Final Fantasy II

 * Elena of the Turks is named after a non-player character in Final Fantasy II.

Final Fantasy III

 * Aerith, like Desch, is an Ancient. In addition, the City of the Ancients is likely an allusion to the Village of the Ancients.

Final Fantasy IV

 * Demons Gate refers to Demon Wall in Final Fantasy IV.
 * Cid Highwind's surname alludes to Kain Highwind. Cid also uses spears and lances in battle and possesses Dragoon-like abilities, like Kain.
 * Whichever girl Cloud dates at the Gold Saucer, she will play the role of Princess Rosa in the Event Square play. The role may allude to Rosa, the main love interest of Final Fantasy IV.

Final Fantasy V

 * The monsters fought in Gelnika, named "Unknown", refer to the various enemies found in the Great Sea Trench in Final Fantasy V, also called Unknown. Both locations are underwater.
 * The Choco/Mog Materia has a random chance to rarely summon the Fat Chocobo. The Summon command for the chocobo summon in Final Fantasy V worked the same way.
 * The Odin Materia usually casts Zantetsuken, but if all targets are immune to its instant death effect, it will cast Gunge Lance instead. The Odin summon in Final Fantasy V was the same.

Final Fantasy VI

 * Cait Sith resembles the Cait Sith summon from Final Fantasy VI, and may have been inspired by it.
 * Biggs and Wedge debuted in Final Fantasy VI as soldiers in the Gestahlian Empire. Their names refer to Star Wars characters Biggs Darklighter and Wedge Antilles, Luke Skywalker's Red Squadron wingmen in Episode IV: A New Hope.
 * Moogles in Final Fantasy VII are referred to as Mogs. Cait Sith's Moogle Dance Limit Break in Final Fantasy VII may also refer to Mog, whose special command was Dance in Final Fantasy VI.
 * There are billboards in Midgar depicting "Mt. Kolts" in Final Fantasy VII. It also appears in Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- as the name of a bar in Midgar's Sector 8 Fountain.
 * The summon monster Typhoon alludes to Typhon, Ultros's cohort, from Final Fantasy VI.
 * The enemy Cactuar, found in a desert area, originated in Final Fantasy VI.
 * Gaining Cloud's Ultima Weapon from Ultima Weapon may allude to Final Fantasy VI where both the physical weapon and the enemy originated. In the backstory from Final Fantasy VI, both were created during the War of the Magi to be the ultimate weapons of destruction, and thus share an odd connection. Furthermore, Cloud's Ultimate Weapon has similar design elements with the one in Final Fantasy VI, as both weapons have ornate crossguards with two V section on both sides of the sword's bar and the blades glow blue and visibly display their strength in battle when the player is weakened.
 * Chasing down Ultimate Weapon by airship alludes to pursuing Deathgaze in Final Fantasy VI.

Final Fantasy VII
Installments released after the original Final Fantasy VII sometimes make references to it:
 * In Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Loz's ringtone is the "Victory Fanfare" from Final Fantasy VII.
 * The document pinned on a wall in 7th Heaven in Final Fantasy VII Advent Children has a picture of the North American cover art of Final Fantasy VII.
 * Emerald Weapon, a superboss in Final Fantasy VII, can be spotted among crystals in an area off the map in Banora Underground in Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-.
 * One can find posters featuring Cloud's silhouette in Edge in Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII-.
 * The opening sequence of Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- mirrors the opening of Final Fantasy VII: both start in a train station and both protagonists jump off a train.

Allusions to the Number Seven
Being the seventh installment of the series, Final Fantasy VII's entire compilation makes some references to the number itself and is, in fact, the first game in the series to make major allusions to its own number. Although many of these are not necessarily deliberate allusions to the number 7 (whether they are or not is speculative), they are nonetheless present.

Final Fantasy VII

 * AVALANCHE resides in Sector 7 of Midgar.
 * When entering Midgar from the world map, the door has a number "7" painted on it, even if it is the door to Sector 5.
 * Tifa's bar is called 7th Heaven.
 * At the start of the game, seven people are either living or staying at the 7th Heaven: Cloud, Barret, Tifa, Marlene, Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie.
 * Shinra Headquarters has 70 floors.
 * The books in the Shinra Mansion library shelves form the letters "VII".
 * The red plane in Costa del Sol harbor has "VII" painted on the side.
 * Gold Saucer has seven areas of attractions.
 * Ancient Forest has seven treasures.
 * The Turtle's Paradise awards seven items for completing the flyer-hunt sidequest.
 * Aeris and Ifalna were held captive by Hojo for seven years.
 * It's been seven years since Cloud left Nibelheim to join SOLDIER.
 * Tifa spends seven days unconscious before waking up after the Weapons awake.
 * Red XIII tells the party that Meteor will reach the Planet in seven days.
 * Cloud levels up to level 7 in the first battle.
 * If a unit's HP hits 7,777 during battle they enter All Lucky 7s status.
 * The "lucky" handicap reel on the Battle Square is called Lucky 7.
 * Most characters have seven different Limit Breaks. The exceptions are Cait Sith, who has two but with various different outcomes, and Vincent, who has four, but each form has two special attacks. This makes for seven characters who have seven Limit Breaks.
 * There are nine main playable characters, but only seven are mandatory.
 * Ptolemy's diagram of the, also known as the s, or the "", is used in the Super Nova animation. Since there are seven, this can be seen as another allusion the game has to the number seven.

Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-

 * The game spans seven years.
 * There is a sidequest in Nibelheim called "Seven Wonders of Nibelheim".
 * There are seven documents found in Shinra Manor.
 * The door to the final area of the game is opened by placing seven Goddess Materia on a console.
 * Each one of Angeal Penance's attacks is named after one of the (pride, greed, gluttony, lust, envy, sloth, and wrath).
 * When the Digital Mind Wave spins to 7-7-7 during modulating phase, Zack levels up. When it spins to 7-7-7 outside of modulating phase it grants temporary invincibility. If the Digital Mind Wave spins a 7 in any of the slots outside of modulating phase, some positive effect will trigger.
 * Zack has seven different special attacks he can perform from the Digital Mind Wave. He also has seven different outcomes from the Chocobo Mode.

References to Square Enix or Square Enix games

 * During the closing moments of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete, when the Moogle Girl is cured of Geostigma, a paper bearing a three-by-three grid is visible on the wall behind her; within the nine spaces are the box art to many of Square Enix's PlayStation games, including the art for Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy Tactics.
 * When Cloud suffers from Mako poisoning in Mideel and the player talks to him, he mutters on about "Xenogears". Xenogears is another Square title that was in production the same time as Final Fantasy VII. The game's name was spelled wrong in the PlayStation version, but was fixed in the PC-version of Final Fantasy VII.
 * In Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- there is a sign in Junon that has the url for the official Square Enix website.

Music

 * During the scene when Sector 7 is destroyed, President Shinra observes the events from his office and the music he is listening to is Joseph﻿ Haydn's "The Creation".
 * The play LOVELESS that has posters all over Midgar is the name of an album by My Bloody Valentine. The text "My Bloody Valentine" is found on the posters in Final Fantasy VII.
 * The Sister Ray cannon may have been named after a song by the Velvet Underground, featured on their White Light/White Heat album.
 * The katakana for the enemy Gighee (a play on 'Gee-gee', a "bad horse") can also be read as "Ziggy", the persona of, "Ziggy Stardust". The enemy model is based on this pun, looking like Ziggy Stardust, and with a guitar for a tail. Both Gighee and the enemy it is fought alongside with, Christopher, use song attacks, and Christopher uses an attack called Stardust March only if Gighee is alive.

Mythology and religion

 * Midgar's name derives from Midgard, one of the nine plains, or worlds, in old Norse mythology. Likewise, Nibelheim derives from Nifilheim, which is another of the Nine Worlds in Nordic mythology.
 * Sephiroth is named for the סְפִירוֹת Səphīrōth (medieval Hebrew form of Sephirot). Sephiroth is a plural noun in Hebrew; the singular is Sephirah (also spelled Sefira). The Sephiroth are described in the Kabbalah as the manifestations of God that allow Him to manifest in the physical and metaphysical universes, referring to Sephiroth's simultaneous existence in the Lifestream and the Planet, and his manifestations through Jenova.

Movies and TV

 * Jenova's abilities of assimilation, mimicry, and independent body parts, along with Angeal Hewley's power to infect and assimilate others with his DNA, are akin to the Thing of the 1982 film by John Carpenter.
 * Three members of the Ravens in Before Crisis -Final Fantasy VII-: Tierce, Kyneugh, and Kanos; bear the same names as minor characters in the Star Wars series.
 * Although perhaps coincidental, the summon Hades and its attack Black Cauldron may be based on the Horned King and the Black Cauldron from the 1985 Disney film also called the Black Cauldron. The lighting on Hades's robe reflects the color of the Horned King's robe in the film, and the burst of energy coming from the cauldron resembles the blast of the cauldron's black magic from the film.
 * Dio's Trophy Room in Battle Square contains an allusion to the anime . The robot suit has a sign that reads "Magma Diver - D-type﻿ armor" -, a reference to the episode where Asuka Langley Soryuu fights an angel in magma and her armor is type D.
 * The tarot-card using enemy Death Dealer uses the the World card to inflict Stop. Dio Brando, the major villain of the anime and manga JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, has an ability based on the World tarot to stop time.

Non-Square Enix Games

 * In the 2012 re-release of the PC version of Final Fantasy VII there is an area in Northern Cave that has an easter egg. Using the save crystal in this area will change the name of the location in the inventory to "Secret Cow Level". This is a reference to the easter egg in .
 * The second segment of chapter five in Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII- is named "Solid Cait". This refers to, the main character of stealth game series .

Real World

 * Costa del Sol is a real location in Spain.
 * The sign above in Tifa's bar, and a neon sign inside the bar, say "Texas".
 * There is a map of Japan hung on the wall in one of the residences in North Corel.
 * There is a Shanghai Inn somewhere in Rocket Town, which is a city in China.
 * The name Wall Market,, is, in Japanese, a play on the word Walmart, ; only the end of the Japanese writing has been changed. Walmart is an American retailer corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores.
 * The mayor of Midgar is called Domino, and his deputy Hart's original name in the Japanese version is Hut. Domino and Hut refer to pizza chains Domino's Pizza and Pizza Hut. This is because the upper plate of Midgar is at times referred to as a pizza.
 * The tire on the pick-up truck Zack and Cloud ride on in an optional flashback sequence says "Good Stone". This is a mix of real world tire brands and.