Final Fantasy VII heavily references the Lurian Kabbalah [kah-ball-a]. Kabbalah is a Jewish school of thought that also refers to the mysticism of Judaism and Gnosticism, a collection of ancient religions. Not only does FFVII draw from the beliefs of these religions, but it incorporates what actually happened to the followers in real life, as well as using Hebrew in the formation of character names. A few examples are:

• The Gnostics were persecuted, like the Cetra.
• Sephiroth's name comes from the term Sefirot (meaning "counting" or "enumeration"), which refers to the ten aspects of God in the Tree of Life.
• The sixth sefira in Tree of Life is beauty, known in Hebrew as Tif'eret {ti-fah-ret}. It is possible that this is how Tifa's name was derived.

The meaning of "Safer Sephiroth", the name of the final boss -- not counting the unloseable battle that follows -- has been the subject of debate. Many assume that it's a mistranslation of "Seraph Sephiroth", as Sephiroth's form bears an explicit resemblance to the six-winged Seraph angels (particularly as depicted in the painting "Stigmatization of St. Francis" by Giotto).

However this is not true, as the Japanese name is romanized as Sēfa Sefirosu. The actual translation is 'Sepher', which is Hebrew for the word Book. Sephiroth's name itself is based on the Hebrew word Səphīrōth, which can be translated as Numbers. The name Sepher Sephiroth can thus be translated as "Book of Numbers", one of the books in the Hebrew Bible.

Cait Sith resembles the Esper "Stray" from Final Fantasy VI, which was also called Cait Sith in the original Japanese version. The name itself comes from Celtic mythology, and means "faerie cat".

During the events of Cloud's flashback to Nibelheim, the player can go into Tifa's house. Tifa isn't home, but the player still has the ability to explore her entire house. If the player interacts with the wardrobe in Tifa's room, they will find a joke item called the "Orthopaedic Underwear." The Tifa listening to the story in the present will scold Cloud for joking whilst he is retelling his story.

The unusually named boss "Bizarro-Sephiroth" was a result of a mistranslation. The boss is actually known as "Rebirth-Sephiroth", but due to the letters "B" and "V" being interchangeable in Japanese and "th" often being translated as "S" (the same issue led to Aerith being known as Aeris), it ended up being translated as "Reverse-Sephiroth."

The translators then replaced the word "Reverse" with "Bizarro", which in the west can be used as a slang term to refer to something that is opposite or backwards. It is derived from the character Bizarro from the Superman comics, who was an imperfect clone of Superman who consciously did things the opposite way they were expected.

Both Ruby and Emerald WEAPON were not in the original Japanese version of the game. They were added later for the international versions of the game.

Cloud's Buster Sword was originally a lot smaller and thinner with only one Materia slot. Tetsuya Nomura's original vision of the Buster Sword was unrefined steel, and he referred to it as "the Giant Kitchen Knife".

The intro to Sephiroth's theme, "One-Winged Angel", was inspired by the intro to the song "Purple Haze" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Due to both Vincent and Yuffie being optional recruits, they do not appear in the game's ending cutscene.

In the 2012 PC re-release, using a Save Crystal in a specific screen of the Northern Cave will display the area name in the menu and save file as "Secret Cow Level". This is a reference to the Secret Cow Level in Diablo II.

The character Zack Fair was created late into development. He was made up along the way as Kazushige Nojima was building up the mysteries surrounding Cloud (most importantly, who he was and who he based his fake cocky personality on). Before Zack was created, Aerith was to see her first love in Cloud, though who that person would be was not yet decided until later, but there were plans to make this person Sephiroth. Eventually, Zack was placed to serve as both Aerith's first love and to solve the mysteries surrounding Cloud. When he was finally developed, Nojima asked the staff in charge of the event scenes to add foreshadowing to Cloud's true persona and to Zack himself. Zack was also the last character to be drawn by Tetsuya Nomura.

When returning to the Sector 5 Church, two different images of Aeris may be seen. One appears for a split second in the center of screen before disappearing, while in the other Aeris is seen tending the flowers before Cloud moves closer. It has been speculated this is meant to be her "ghost".

During the cutscene Spoiler:in which he kills Aeris, Sephiroth's hands are bare as he descends from the ceiling. However, during the rest of the scene, he has black gloves on.

Aeris, after being brought back via a cheat device, has dialogue in discs 2 and 3. This seems to imply that either Spoiler:she was not meant to die at the end of disc 1 or that Spoiler:she was intended to be revived later in the game.

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.