(Warning: The following contains spoilers for Final fantasy 7.)
Speedrunners for the original Final fantasy 7 from 1997 have made a strangely important discovery for a long time FF7 fans, including non-speedrunners. It turns out that, through a series of very difficult in-game maneuvers, Aerith is able to remain in the player’s company even after her death scene. She can sit around and watch her own climactic, infamous murder by Sephiroth and then just hang out.
As with all discoveries in speedrunning, this was a group effort, although the two names most often mentioned are speedrunners called AceZephyr and Kuma. This new skip builds on knowledge from a previously discovered one FF7 speedrun tactic known as the Kalm skip, which allows the player (as the name implies) to skip an in-game area called Kalm. Skipping involves taking advantage of the way the game reads different types of terrain on the world map, allowing the player to walk in certain patterns to get to places they shouldn’t have reached yet. This has opened the possibility of discovering other similar jumps, such as this most recent jump, demonstrated in a proof-of-concept video from Kuma and in one shorter demonstration video of AceZephyrin which Cloud walks on water (fun stuff). Ultimately, this new skip will allow speedrunners to go from Midgar all the way to the City of the Ancients, which could ultimately save up to two hours. FF7 speed records.
Speedrunning tactics are always a bit esoteric to explain, but I found 4-8Productions’ YouTube video on the subject to be quite clear and easy to understand.
The funniest thing about this video, and most videos on the subject from speedrunners, is that saving Aerith is little more than a fun side effect of the skip. Ultimately, speedrunners are looking for glitches and tricks that can help them get through the game as quickly as possible. Whether Aerith comes along or not is rather secondary.
Furthermore, since Aerith still has to witness her own death, you could argue that she isn’t really “rescued” here – even though she is still depicted as a party member after that scene unfolds. However, it’s not like you can play the rest of the game normally with Aerith hanging around and fighting next to you. The game soft-locks whenever you engage in a battle with Aerith there; therefore, using these skips to successfully complete the game would also involve using various means to skip random battles. So this isn’t exactly the “save Aerith” dream that fans thought would be possible for many years afterward FF7 was first released. It’s still pretty awesome for speedrunners, though, as it’s a huge discovery with great potential for more.