After you find Cloud in the hospital after he falls in the Lifestream, he will mumble incoherent things when you speak to him. One of the things he mumbles is "zeno... gias..." This is a translation error and a reference to the game Xenogears. In the PC port of Final Fantasy VII, the spelling is corrected to "Xeno... gears".

Cloud also says "A billion mirror fragments.... small.... light..." which is a reference to the vocal song of Xenogears, Small Two of Pieces. One of the lines to the song is "Broken mirror, a million shades of light".

While at the Honeybee Inn, if you look into one of the occupied rooms through a key-hole, you can see a mini Cait Sith inside a bath tub jumping around.

During the scene where Sister Ray is about to fire the Diamond Weapon, there is a voice that comes through the intercom. The voice actor is not credited in the credits, and the person who spoke through it is unknown.

Although a voice was heard, and ultimately makes Final Fantasy VII the first Final Fantasy game with a voice actor.

During development, series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi's mother passed away. At the time, Sakaguchi wanted to craft a story that would show just because somebody has passed on, it doesn't mean that they are forever lost. He also wanted to present a realistic death, rather than a Hollywood sacrificial end. These two desires resulted in the concept of the Lifestream and Aeris' iconic death. The characters continuing to go on, attempting to save the world, after Aeris' death is a reflection of his own feelings coping with his mother's tragic death.

Many people still don't know how Cloud's legendary "Buster Sword" sticks to his back, but if you look at his initial design, it shows there is a magnet held by his pant straps that keeps his sword in place.

Cloud's hair was originally supposed to be black and slicked back to contrast with Sephiroth's long white hair. The developers also thought it would be a good way to render less polygons on screen. The idea was eventually ditched for his iconic spiky hair. The idea was later used for Angeal, the original wielder of the Buster Sword and Sephiroph's close friend in Crisis Core.

There are large quantities of cut content from the soapland 'Honey Bee Inn'. The content is as follows:

Whilst in the club, Cloud could end up in a bathtub with nine muscular men, peep through keyholes of occupied rooms, have makeup applied, and choose a room to stay in. You could have also encountered Palmer, head of the Shinra company's space program, coming from one of his regular "bath sessions". There was also a waiting room and employee's louge which players could visit and interact with NPCs.

Whilst some of this content was ultimately cut from the game, the unfinished content can be found on the discs of the original Japanese release and can be accessed through file hacks.

The inscription on Jenova's helmet is a reference to the real world, and read:
Made in Hong Kong
All rights reserved 1996
Squer Company Limited

It wasn't until 2005 (When a high-res image emerged) that this was found, 8 years after the game was released.

If you encounter the enemy Adamantaimai and manage to cast Barrier, MBarrier or Big Guard (which includes both statuses) before its first turn, the Adamantaimai will attempt to use Cure. However, it does not have Cure in its attack list, which will most commonly result in a debug error message appearing advising players to hold L1, R1 and Select to return to the overworld. The reason Adamantaimai tries to use Cure is because Cure has the ability ID of 0. Adamantaimai selects an ability to use if it lacks Barrier status, and it can select another ability if it has Barrier but not MBarrier (at no other time does this enemy store an ability in memory). However, no value was ever set for the possibility of it already having both statuses on its first turn, so it never sets an ability and instead tries to use the ability set at 0. While Adamantaimai using Cure is not unusual on paper, it has no animation for it unlike its other attacks, resulting in the error message. Attempting this glitch in modern releases of the game will cause it to freeze.

In the Japanese version, the test battle in the debug room features a proper background and models for the enemies included (borrowed from other enemies), whereas the international version simply pits the party against yellow pyramids in a black void.

Additionally, the very first Japanese release contains an unfinished eleventh section of the debug room, left over from an earlier build of the game. Because the game's code changed significantly since that build, much of the eleventh section is broken: Cloud's model does not show up (though he is still able to move around and interact with the NPCs there), text is corrupted, and the background music is a heavily distorted version of Aeris' theme.

A hidden programmer message is hidden in the files of Disk 3, stating:

"great special thanx to you, ARIKO...from your husband, HIDEJI".

In the very first Japanese release of the game, at the bottom of the well in Corel Prison, a rare debug enemy known as "Test 0" that was accidentally left in the game on its initial release can be randomly encountered. This encounter does not require cheats or hacks to occur, although GameShark codes can be used to access every other debug enemy battle in the game. This battle was removed from all future releases of the game. "The Completely Unauthorized Final Fantasy VII Ultimate Guide" by Versus Books, released in 1997, features an entry on this enemy (note that the HP listing in the guide scan is incorrect; Test 0 has 30000 HP).

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth nods back to this oversight by making Test 0 a legitimate optional encounter in the Beast Battleground. The nature of its presence in the original game is referenced in the enemy's bestiary entry, which describes it as "A test subject that managed to escape Shinra's R&D Division due to a developer's oversight."

According to the game's art director Yūsuke Naora, he liked how his design of the city of Midgar turned out, having envisioned the city in his head as a pizza while he was designing it.

After the first AVALANCHE mission at the start of the game, Barret will reference this inspiration when talking to Cloud about the upper plate of Midgar:


Additionally, the name of the song "Underneath the Rotting Pizza", which prominently plays in many of the slum areas in Midgar, is a reference to its design.

According to character designer Tetsuya Nomura, Aerith's dress was specifically designed so that it used a low number of polygons. Cloud was originally designed with slicked-back hair for the same reason.

The original idea for the game had it set in modern New York City in the year 1999, and was intended to have a "detective story" theme, with a character called "Hot Blooded Detective Joe". The early script had him chasing the main characters, who would then blow up the city of Midgar.

One of the early art directions of the game was going to use 2D pixel-based graphics. There was one concept image early in the development featuring an isometric view in this style using Final Fantasy VI character designs, including Locke.

The last phase of the final boss fight pits Cloud in a one-on-one duel against Sephiroth, who will always go down in a single hit, regardless of whether Cloud attacks him or steals from him. This is facilitated by giving Sephiroth only 1 HP, which can be seen in-game with help from a GameShark code.

The number 7 is very prevalent in the game.

• AVALANCHE resides in Sector 7 of Midgar.
• 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.
• 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.
• The Gold Saucer has seven areas of attractions.
• The 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.

There is a bit of unused dialogue found in the Final Fantasy VII game data that would have taken place outside the Shinra Headquarters, before the party head in for the first time, and in the elevator, if the player entered the building through the main entrance. Outside the building, Barret would suggest that Cloud knows the place well, to which Cloud would have answered it to be his first time there. Barret would then have said he has been at the headquarters before, back when he still had both his hands. The elevator scene is similar, with Cloud saying he's never been to the place before and asking if Barret is familiar with it, which would have prompted the same response from Barret. These bits were cut off the final game and nothing in the finished version suggests Barret would have ever visited the Shinra Headquarters before.

Barret was the first consistently dark-skinned playable character in the Final Fantasy series as Leo Cristophe from Final Fantasy VI was light-skinned in his sprite form.