I honestly think that this game is what made them decide to kill Aerith in FFVII. Nomura even talked about Aerith's death saying, "We didn't want her to come back, because that's the common cliche." And he goes on about this for a while, but you get the basic idea. Death was so irrelevant in this game, that I really do think it was one of the original reasons for killing Aerith and keeping her dead. It sure did bug the hell out of me though. That everyone lived that is, not that Aerith died (Okay, that bugged me too, but not in the same way).