Unexpected Discoveries

I recently started a new game of FFVII for what must be at least the fifth or sixth time, and the best part of 20 years since I first played the game (blimey, am I really that old?).

I was really pleasantly surprised by the things which even now I'm discovering which I've missed on previous playthroughs. The three which sprung to mind are:

1) Stealing gil from the kid's hidden drawer in his bedside cabinet in the Sector 5 slums
2) reading the letter on Tifa's desk in the Nibelheim flashback (I knew about the letter in the reconstructed Nibelheim)
3) The Cursed Ring in Mideel (which I actually missed having just done Mideel, and learnt about via the FF Wiki)

I think it's great that a game I know so well can still throw up new things even after all this time!

Have you ever stumbled across anything new or unexpected in FFVII in later playthroughs?

There's a flashback in the Icicle Inn town where you can see more of Aerith's mother's past - I think it's triggered by a lever in a lab or something. I forget the specifics but sometimes when I would tell people about it they'd never heard it was there and were surprised.

There's a place in (I think) Corel that I never knew about, and still haven't actually been to, but I saw it in HC Bailey's Let's Play of the game. I forget the specifics, but if you go the direction you don't have to there's an area where there's at least one NPC, but I forget what their purpose is. Sorry that's vague.

As for things I discovered myself; I didn't know that there was a room in the Honey Bee Inn with the old couple talking about their son at Shinra, with Cait Sith's music playing and a little Cait Sith in their room (I think it's safe to say who their son is...) I can't remember if I saw the other room on my first playthrough or not. It also took me time to know that both of those rooms have more than one scene.

I knew about most of the things in the original post, but the Cursed Ring was the one thing I didn't know about on my first playthrough (I failed to do the thing with the kid's gil, but I knew about it.) That was a fun discovery, and I like how it wasn't what you'd expect with the whole "Locked Door" thing.

Also, next time try looking at the kids gil, but don't steal it... see if anything different happens when you see the kid after he wakes up. :)

In the Kalm hotel with the unreachable item in the cupboard, just keep trying and on the 5th or 6th attempt Cloud will kick the cupboard so it falls down and BOOM early game Megalixer.

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Originally Posted by Vincent, Thunder God

There's a flashback in the Icicle Inn town where you can see more of Aerith's mother's past - I think it's triggered by a lever in a lab or something. I forget the specifics but sometimes when I would tell people about it they'd never heard it was there and were surprised.

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It's in Professor Gast's house in Icicle Inn, there are several video logs you can watch.

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Originally Posted by Cell

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Originally Posted by Vincent, Thunder God

There's a flashback in the Icicle Inn town where you can see more of Aerith's mother's past - I think it's triggered by a lever in a lab or something. I forget the specifics but sometimes when I would tell people about it they'd never heard it was there and were surprised.

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It's in Professor Gast's house in Icicle Inn, there are several video logs you can watch.

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I remember thinking for some reason it would be a good place to trigger a flashback, so I wasn't surprised when I found it. Weirdly though a lot of people had never heard of it when I first mentioned it (and my first playthrough was probably like 2004 so that's surprising).

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Originally Posted by Fox

In the Kalm hotel with the unreachable item in the cupboard, just keep trying and on the 5th or 6th attempt Cloud will kick the cupboard so it falls down and BOOM early game Megalixer.

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i found this for the first time recently and it blew my mind that i'd never seen or heard of it, lol

That for me is the troubling thing about DLC and update patches. It's almost impossible to know which things you missed in a previous play-through versus what things were only just added recently. So the feelings of nostalgia-based surprise just kind of leave you rubbing your head in confusion.
"Was this here before? How the hell should I know? Well, I guess it's here now anyway."

Not a new discovery, but always love the unexpected giant neon "TEXAS" logo in 7th Heaven.

I started playing FFVII again recently and there's an NPC in the Costa del Sol that you can walk straight through. It's the hawain lady in the bar. Nothing major but it's something I've never noticed befoe.

Also I noticed in the ShinRa building, on the room with the gym, there's a locker room. If you search the lockers Cloud finds a Megaphone, which is obviously Reeves. He says "there's no need for this" and puts it back. Again this is something I've never come across in previous play throughs

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Originally Posted by fat_moogle

Also I noticed in the ShinRa building, on the room with the gym, there's a locker room. If you search the lockers Cloud finds a Megaphone, which is obviously Reeves. He says "there's no need for this" and puts it back. Again this is something I've never come across in previous play throughs

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I think if you come back later it's Cait Sith's final weapon? Always found it funny you couldn't get it then, considering the number of items you can get early with decent exploration.

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Originally Posted by Lone Wolf Leonhart

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Originally Posted by fat_moogle

Also I noticed in the ShinRa building, on the room with the gym, there's a locker room. If you search the lockers Cloud finds a Megaphone, which is obviously Reeves. He says "there's no need for this" and puts it back. Again this is something I've never come across in previous play throughs

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I think if you come back later it's Cait Sith's final weapon? Always found it funny you couldn't get it then, considering the number of items you can get early with decent exploration.

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Yep, that's the HP Shout, Cait Sith's most formidable weapon. Insofar as a megaphone can be 'formidable'. The game is, of course, fine with Cloud carrying a hundred handfuls of Deadly Waste and a hundred replicas of Sephiroth's Masamune, but one extraneous megaphone is just going too far until you return to Shinra HQ later in the game.

Yeah, the rationale is ridiculous but it's obviously just a way to prevent you from having Cait Sith's ultimate weapon already when you first get him in your party. And also for people with good memories to let them know they should look there later on.

Honestly, it may have worked better if the HP Shout's damage algorithm was based on Vincent's Death Penalty instead where the weapon begins weak and grows stronger based on how many kills the user acquires with it equipped. Would have have made acquiring that early in the game not a big deal, but then again we wouldn't have had a good reason to explore the Shin-Ra tower again, so maybe the way they did it was for the best.

Speaking of the tower, finding Red XIII's Behemoth Horn in the staircase area when you return was the closest thing to a major discovery for me, especially since the Guide book back then didn't ever mention it.

I didn't have a guidebook or even internet access when FF7 was released. So everything was a discovery for me. Except I used a hint line to figure out how to get Yuffie (I thought Wutai was what I need to do next after getting the Tiny Broncorather than optional). Basically because that's where I landed. The game doesn't give you a lot of sirection at that point though.

I definitely didn't remember the megaphone in the locker (if I had checked it earlier), but just wanted to go back to Shinra HQ and explore it and found HP Shout. Definitely noticed the megaphone on subsequent playthroughs though.

I had no idea about the Behemoth Horn! I thought I knew this game so well too.

The discovery I remember really bugging me when I was younger was, after playing FFVIII, finding out online that Alexander appeared in FFVII as well.