Spoilers for all Compilation of Final Fantasy VII works preceding this one, particularly Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, will be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII is a sequel and spinoff of the whiplash-inducingly popular Final Fantasy VII, and was released for the Sony PlayStation 2. Unlike other games in the series, Dirge is a Third-Person Shooter with RPG Elements, starring broody ally Vincent Valentine as he fights to come to terms with his past. Although nearly all of the Final Fantasy VII characters make some appearance, focus is off the main characters and onto ones who didn't get much screentime in the original. It includes a Cutting Off the Branches of a scene late in the game which assumed that Vincent and Yuffie, who were optional Secret Characters, were not in your party.
DOC takes place one year after Advent Children and infamously creates a tie-in with Crisis Core, released afterwards but canonically taking place before the original game. Said tie-in involves J-Pop star GACKT in a rare (for video games) live-action cameo.
This game contains examples of:
- 100% Completion: Doing all the missions and shooting all the little tubes to unlock everything.
- 11th-Hour Superpower: Chaos and Death Penalty.
- Adaptation Expansion: Shinra Mansion sure got a lot bigger. While we're at it, just how many caverns are there under Midgar?
- All Deserts Have Cacti: Or, in this case, Cactuars.
- All There in the Manual: The online game reveals a lot more history about Deepground and the Tsviets, including the reason Weiss died and later got possessed by Hojo. Unfortunately this was
Japan-only. - Ambiguously Gay: Nero is creepily obsessed with his brother Weiss, and has his moments with Vincent. In Lost Episode, he even stalks Vincent to get "a taste of his darkness".
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: Arguably the whole point of the game, but there's also a segment where you control Cait Sith.
- Anime Hair: Weiss, hands down.
- Anime Theme Song: Two, both by GACKT. "Longing" plays during the very last part of the final level on your way to fight the final boss, and "Redemption" is basically the game's theme song.
- Anti-Frustration Features: See Death Is a Slap on the Wrist below.
- Apologizes a Lot: Lucrecia.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: No matter what, you will never fight alongside any other main character. They will always just happen to be knocked out or somewhere else. The CG sequence that shows the WRO's assault on Midgar includes practically all the characters you'd want to fight alongside, along with Vincent. Of course, Vincent goes his own, separate route while the rest of the cast go elsewhere (Shelke even complains about it afterward, asking Vincent why he landed "several clicks off (his) target destination.").
- Ascended Extra: Vincent, Lucrecia and Chaos were respectively an optional party member, a minor character and a Limit Break in the original game. In this game, Vincent is the protagonist, and Lucrecia and Chaos have major roles in the story.
- Author Appeal: The reason why GACKT is the most powerful being on the planet.
- Ax-Crazy: Rosso.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: When Rosso is defeated, rather than let Vincent kill her, she cuts her chunk of floor away from the building she's standing on and falls to her death.
- Badass Army: Deepground and World Regenesis Organization, once they decided to go offensive.
- Badass Cape: Vincent, of course. One could make a case for Rosso and Azul as well.
- Berserk Button: For Vincent, only being Hojo is enough to push him off the edge.
- That's rare that the Tsviets genuinely care for someone when that isn't to use them. But if they ever do, pray God to have mercy on you because they won't.
- Big Brother Instinct: Inverted: Nero, the younger brother, is obsessed with protecting Weiss.
- Big Sister Instinct: Shalua refers to Shelke as her reason to live.
- Bishōnen Line: Gorgonero is virtually physically indistinguishable from his regular ol' Nero, unlike Arachnero.
- Chaos also seems to have crossed it between games. Where before it was a Chernabog-esque demon, it now appears as a vamped-out Vincent in a crazy costume.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: While she herself is not overtly malicious, the amount of horrible things that have happened in Vincent's life on account of Lucrecia is positively maddening. At least she's apologetic.
- Blood Knight: Azul.
- Blood Lust: Rosso. After she snapped, Rosso became obsessed with drawing blood from her foes, hence her title, "the Crimson".
- Brainwashed and Crazy: The Tsviets and Deepground, as a result of the Super-Soldier program. The heroes go through some mild angsting over whether Deepground can really be blamed for their actions.
- Call-Back: Vincent got a new phone...
- Character Filibuster: Weiss... er... Hojo loves to do these. They make no sense whatsoever, but he loves 'em.
- Child Soldiers: Shelke was kidnapped and turned into a Tsviet at age 9.
- In the export, it's implied that many of the other Deepground soldiers were also children when they were first experimented on. Weiss, Nero and Rosso were all born in Deepground.
- Cliffhanger Wall: The secret ending of Dirge of Cerberus has not been picked up by any Final Fantasy media since. Genesis flies away with Weiss promising some mysterious new plan... which has never been followed up as the next game Crisis Core is a prequel to the first game and all subsequent tie-in media chronologically take place prior Dirge of Cerberus.
- Colorful Theme Naming: The Tsviets. Nero means black, Azul means blue, Rosso means red, Shelke means amber, Weiss means white, and Argento means silver. Most of them even wear the appropriate colors.
- Bilingual Bonus: "Tsviet" means "color" in Russian (and also is an archaic word for "flower").
- But the accent is so bad that even native Russian speakers can miss it.
- Bilingual Bonus: "Tsviet" means "color" in Russian (and also is an archaic word for "flower").
- Combos: Vincent can do kicks and punches in close quarters.
- Continuity Cameo: Rufus is seen being loaded into an ambulance during the evacuation of Midgar as Meteor is starting to fall. It's explained in the novellas as having something to do with a trap door.
- Continuity Snarl: Oh where to start... If the confusing as hell timeline wasn't bad enough, there's the fact that apparently Hojo decided to fuse with Omega after seeing Vincent in Chaos form during his boss battle during the original game, leading to him injecting Jenova cells in himself to help the process. Only... he injected Jenova cells into him before his boss battle (and thus before he saw Chaos) so he can even fight Cloud and co. And apparently after doing Cloud and co left, he changed back to his original form, uploaded himself on the Internet, and then died in a lightning strike during the final battle with Sephiroth. And there's much more than that.
- Critical Hit: The aforementioned headshots, though it can happen other times too.
- Crystal Prison: Lucrecia is revealed to be in one, apparently of her own free will.
- Cutting Off the Branches: While they can be chosen to participitate in the final battle in the main game, Vincent and Yuffie are shown to remain at Midgar evacuating the civilians in the opening prologue instead of joining Cloud and the others. This would explain why these two, who are optional recruitable characters, are absent in the final FMV.
- Cutscene Power to the Max: And how! In fact, a large complaint with the game was how Vincent could pull off incredible acrobatics in cutscenes, but during gameplay could do no more than double jump, and even that was something that was added to the US/PAL version of the game.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Everyone.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Contrast vampiric Anti-Hero Vincent with crazed mass-murderer Weiss ("white") the Immaculate.
- A Day in the Limelight:
- For Vincent, the Optional Party Member who received the least screentime in the original Final Fantasy VII.
- Notably, the returning cast members who receive the most screentime here are Cid, Reeve/Cait Sith, and Yuffie, whilst the characters introduced before leaving Midgar (Cloud, Barrett, Tifa and Red XIII) are all Demoted to Extra
- Dead to Begin With: Weiss, in a manner of speaking. But "not for long", according to Nero. It turns out that he succumbed to a virus implanted in his body that would be activated if he killed his superiors, which he did.
- Death Glare: Vincent gives one to Hojo in the opening movie.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Due to auto-saving, you have infinite continues and rarely have to redo more than a few minutes of exploration.
- Since you get to keep all of the experience you earned and convert it to levels or Gil after you die, essentially restarting before the problem point with more resources at your disposal, death can be downright beneficial.
- Defusing The Tykebomb: Shalua to Shelke, once Shelke's been captured by the WRO.
- Degraded Boss: Several of them. The helicopter from the first level, the heavy armored soldier from the third level, and the Black Widow robot from the fifth level all reappear as Elite Mooks or Mini-Bosses later in the game.
- Department of Redundancy Department: As the Let's Play was fond of pointing out, "Nero the Sable", "Azul the Cerulean", and "Rosso the Crimson" literally translate to "Black the Black", "Blue the Blue", and "Red the Red", respectively.
- Weiss the Immaculate
might count, as immaculate deals with purity, a theme commonly represented by the color white in Western cultures. Only Argento and Shelke avoid this (Argento doesn't have a title as far as we know and amber is a translucent fossil resin, usually a deep yellowish-orange in color, not clear and transparent).
- Weiss the Immaculate
- Design-It-Yourself Equipment: Sort of; you customize your weapon's base, barrel, and attachment.
- Difficulty by Region: The US release removed the Easy setting, changed the Limit Breaks to items, reduced the number of max slots per item and the money that can be obtained by selling them, and tweaked the enemy AI. On the other hand, it did improve the camera controls, lets Vincent double-jump, and increased Vincent's speed by 20% (American audiences can only boggle at how the original version must have played).
- Difficulty Levels: On Extra Hard, opening the menu doesn't stop the action. Yet, you're allowed to keep all your weapons and items from a previous Normal or Hard mode game.
- Disney Death: Implied to be what Weiss received in the Genesis ending.
- Double Jump: Hilariously, it's the "exclusive bonus feature" for the US/PAL version. And it's near useless, because the level design hasn't changed one bit from the Japanese version. But if you like to show off while gunning down Mooks and monsters, then you're luck!
- Double Weapon: Rosso's sword is a dual bladed red... thing with a small machinegun built in the handle.
- Downer Ending: The Online mode ends up very awfully for the Player Tsviet. After Restrictor kills them, Weiss and his fellow Tsviets reveal that they manipulated the Player Tsviet all along. They let them die and go to find the next one, implying there are more Restrictors to deal with and another person will be a victim of their schemes. Shelke also reveals to the Player that 'they never had any sister' and their memories had been hijacked to be used.
- Dual Wielding: Shelke, Weiss, and Nero, thought it's more along the lines of Quadruple Wielding in the case of the latter case; one gun in each hand, including his wings' hands.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Nero the Sable.
- Emotionless Girl: Shelke.
- Escort Mission: Several of them, involving you trying your darndest not to get your allies killed. Fortunately if they do get killed, you just lose points.
- Ethereal White Dress: Lucrecia, after she goes The Atoner route and seals herself away for all of the horrible things that happened to Vincent because of her, ditches her scientist garb for a white Pimped-Out Dress.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The best trope is Nero. Despite his dark and creepy nature at times, he really does love Weiss and would do anything to protect him or being with him. Weiss also seems to feel the same toward him.
- Even though Shelke was with Deepground, Shalua still cared for her and always tried to search for her.
- Everything Fades
- Evil Brit: Nero the Sable, despite the fantasy setting.
- Evil Laugh: Weiss and Hojo. At first, you might think that Hojo is affecting the way that Weiss laughs, but the group laughter at the end of the Online Mode reveals that no, he just laughs like that naturally. Most of the Tsviets are also guilty of this — they may be evil, but they have a very healthy sense of humor.
- Exclusive Enemy Equipment
- Extended Gameplay: A whole bunch of missions, which unlock neat stuff like galleries.
- Eyepatch of Power: Argento.
- Faceless Mooks: All Deepground soldiers wear face-covering helmets.
- Fate Worse than Death: When Weiss and Nero merge into one, Hojo lost control of it and he's erased from existence as Weiss walks into Omega.
- Femme Fatale: Rosso the Crimson.
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: Materia. Nothing has elemental weaknesses, the only difference is how the spell acts.
- Full-Name Basis: Shelke always calls Vincent by his full name. Once or twice she just calls him Vincent, but she plays it straight the overwhelming majority of the time.
- Gag Sub: This trailer.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: In cutscenes Vincent is an agile and athletic superhuman killing machine that can leap three stories high and tear bosses to shreds with a few well-placed shots or even his bare hands. In gameplay Vincent is befuddled by anything taller than a garbage can that's on its side, and has trouble killing basically anything that aren't bog-standard Mooks.
- Gender-Blender Name: Not intentionally, but seeing as Rosso and Argento are women, their names should really be Rossa and Argentea (the feminine Italian equivalents).
- Gun Accessories: Scopes, barrels, sword knots, and then shit gets weird...
- Guns Are Worthless: Pretty much, given how much ammunition you'll be pumping into the average mook, to say nothing of how many rounds said mooks will put into you.
- Hammerspace
- Hand Cannon: Customizing Cerberus with the Long Barrel can have this effect.
- Heel–Face Turn: Shelke.
- He Knows About Timed Hits: The tutorial, featuring Vincent the Turk in a training hall.
- The Hero Doesn't Kill the Villainess: Both of the female members of the Tsviets, Shelk and Rosso, are not killed by Vincent. Shelke has a High-Heel–Face Turn and Rosso commits suicide rather than be defeated by Vincent.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Shalua. A bit pointless, but heroic all the same.
- Hide Your Children: Averted with the moogle doll.
- Highly-Visible Ninja: Yuffie, hoo boy.
- Hijacked by Ganon: Hojo, by way of possessing Weiss's body.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Azul, by his own cannon.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Yeesh, who did Reeve and the Tsviets hire to train their respective armies?
- Impossibly Cool Clothes: Depends on what your definition of "cool" is. Genesis's jacket could be argued into the "cool" category... Nero's straitjacket and face jockstrap? Not in a million years.
- Impossibly Cool Weapon: Vincent's titular Cerberus, a triple-barreled revolver that can be easily modified on a dime. It's also obnoxiously Awesome, but Impractical despite being your main workhorse firearm, since it chews through ammunition quickly; the eighteen shots on your HUD might as well be a revolver's standard six.
- Improbable Weapon User: Shelke, who uses two lightsabe... energy rods attached by... er, more energy.
- Infinity +1 Sword: Ultima Weapon, as usual. Technically, Death Penalty is stronger, but it's only available when the Chaos Limit Break is.
- Invisible Wall: Combined with Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence. While Vincent has to find keycards for the energy fences, he cannot, at any point, simply jump over or around them. Even in the US/PAL release, where he can jump higher than these energy fences.
- Even more ridiculously, there is a point near the end of the game where Vincent has to crawl under a pipe. The problem is, there is nothing above the pipe. By all logic, Vincent should just be able to jump over it. But no, he has to use the pretty much useless crawl function.
- This is also really confusing, because the opening FMV scene showed Vincent jumping from roof to roof, over helicopters, in ways that pretty much defy physics and would make any Olympic gymnast go, "Shit."
- Invulnerable Civilians: Averted, one of your bonus objectives in the first chapter even revolves around rescuing them before they get gunned down. Thankfully you can still get an S rank even despite one of them near-inevitably getting mowed down in a scripted sequence.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: Vincent gets one after Omega's born and he turns into Chaos, and Shelke is the one who has to dive in after him to bring him back.
- Just Between You and Me: Weiss/Hojo really can't resist explaining every last detail of his evil plan, even after Vincent interrupts him twice to say he's heard enough.
- Large Ham: Hojo.
- Also Yuffie. She goes all-out on her introduction when Vincent asks who she is, as she's wearing a cloak, for some unknown reason.
- Katanas Are Just Better: After Weiss combines with Omega, his gun-swords are upgraded to a pair of katanas.
- Kudzu Plot: Possibly the biggest offender in the Compilation.
- Kung Fu-Proof Mook : Weiss' Elites in Deepground are invulnerable to normal bullets thanks to a Beehive Barrier. You can still dispose of them with elemental attacks or kick their ass manually in hand-to-hand combat.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: In the online mode. It is very difficult to guess who is the nicest between Restrictor and Weiss as the two of them committed very horrible and amoral actions to reach their goals, and in any case there would be victims because of them. Nevertheless, the online mode made the Tsviets as somehow the "good guys" because of their background which makes them somewhat sympathetic. Furthermore, Weiss's care for his brother is his only one redeemable trait
- Lethal Joke Item: The Toy Gun is completely useless, but if you upgrade it to its final version, you get the Infinity Plus One Gun, Ultima Weapon.
- Light Is Not Good: Contrast vampiric Anti-Hero Vincent with crazed mass-murderer Weiss ("white") the Immaculate.
- Limit Break: Available as an item this time round.
- Little Miss Badass: Double subverted by Shelke. She really is a nineteen-year old teenager, but given that she is Not Allowed to Grow Up, she has the body of a nine-year old, yet is more than capable of kicking ass.
- Lost Technology: Cid reveals he found the Shera buried in a cave underground, already constructed and more-or-less operational. This may be a Shout-Out to Final Fantasy VI and how Setzer recovers the Falcon, as well as the Final Fantasy tradition of having the heroes find relic airships from another age.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Two cases actually happened. The first one is definitely Lucrecia. Whether or not her and Hojo's relationship could be viewed as love, it's because she followed Hojo that she used her own child Sephiroth as an experiment to the point she doesn't even care about Vincent's warnings, while the latter was genuinely in love with her. She is remorseful but it comes too late. The second example is Nero who is ready to commit genocide and awakening Omega only out of love for his brother who was actually Hojo. In this case it comes out as a Love Makes You Evil trope too.
- Mad Scientist: Hojo, of course, and Lucrecia, to some extent.
- Male Gaze: Yuffie Kisaragi (at least in the opening) and Shalua Rui are subject to this. Rosso the Crimson has her moments as well.
- Shelke counts also.
- Mana Meter
- Matricide: Nero the Sable, one of the Tsviets, inadvertently sent his own birthmother into another dimension while she was giving birth to him due to his powers, which also acted as the reason why Shinra bound his arms as well as presumably limited his overall power.
- Moral Myopia: During their meeting, Nero doesn't seem to understand Shelke's motives to protect people who count on her, while this former does exactly the same for his brother Weiss and is ready to kill anyone who would dare come close to him. Although there is a slight moment where he seems to think about it, he ends up by saying it is just nonsense.
- Muggles: Reeve and the WRO mooks. Every other character is some sort of special... Well, they're special, let's just leave it at that.
- Multi-Mook Melee: The 100-enemy room.
- My Suit Is Also Super: No matter how much damage he takes or how many times he uses a Limit Breaker, Vincent's cape will never suffer Clothing Damage.
- No Accounting for Taste: Anyone wondering what Lucrecia ever saw in Hojo will still be left wondering after playing this game. If anything, he seems even more Obviously Evil than ever before.
- No Cutscene Inventory Inertia: Vincent is restricted to the Vanilla pistol in cutscenes, no matter how pimped out the player has it, or if you were using an SMG or Rifle a second ago.
- Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Tsviets — sort of.
- Oddball in the Series: Out of all the Compilation games, this is by far the most divisive.
- Oh, Crap!: Hojo/Weiss got a huge one when Vincent-Chaos parried his Razor Wind with a finger.
- Older Than They Look: Shelke, a nineteen-year-old woman with the body of a nine-year-old girl.
- 1-Up: The Phoenix Down arguably acts as this. Why in the world this did not happen to Aerith is beyond anyone's guess.
- One-Winged Angel: All of the Tsviets aside from Rosso (who fittingly Turns Red instead) and Shelke, as well as Vincent.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: After Azul is defeated by Vincent, this latter turns into Chaos and ends up by impaling him in a brutal way. And Chaos smiles to this.
- Nero also did this to Hojo.
- Pet the Dog: Despite everything she did and mostly is the cause of Vincent's sorrow, Lucrecia seemed to really care about him. There is even a moment where the two shared a picnic together even though Vincent's duty was to protect her. She also seems very remorseful for having made him suffer.
- Tsviets are monsters, however Weiss's and Nero's relationship are the few moments of humanity between them. Some of interactions with the player in Online eventually turned to be a Bait the Dog, as they even didn't care if the player died.
- Playing with Syringes: Deepground.
- Psycho for Hire: Definitely Rosso.
- Razor Wind: Rosso again, who can cut through solid concrete just by swinging her hand.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Azul delivered one to Shelke while preparing to grind her bones.
- Redshirt Army: They even wear red uniforms.
- The Remnant: The organization named Deepground appears and wreaks havoc on the world. It soon turns out they are a little known experimental group from within Shinra's group SOLDIER and were kept hidden underground. It's stated that in the handover between President Shinra and his son Rufus that Rufus was never informed about the group, so by the time they see the surface in Dirge of Cerberus 3 years have passed since the end of the original game and they have been preparing for their mission without knowledge that the Shinra company that caused their formation is basically no more.
- Retcon: Some, like the game's opening scene, explain why Vincent and Yuffie didn't show up in the ending of Final Fantasy VII. Others are just to make this game work a little better, such as Chaos's new form.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: Cerberus is a triple-barreled one.
- Satellite Character: Nero to Weiss.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Deepground, again.
- See You in Hell: Azul works it into his Final Speech, though they're not his last words.
- Ship Tease: Between Vincent and Yuffie, especially counting every time they saved each other during the story, and how Yuffie was worried when she thought that Vincent was hurt during the final battle against Omega.
- Also some between Vincent and Shelke, as they each become a Morality Pet to the other (Vincent showing Shelke what it means to fight for others, and Shelke's ability to adapt to becoming a member of WRO shows Vincent that he can find peace). Most notably, at the end Shelke is the one waiting for Vincent when he emerges from bidding Lucrezia goodbye for the last time, and she jokingly grumbles she has no idea why Cloud, Yuffie and the others forced her to go get him while smiling warmly.
- In the online mode, there is very subtle but present ship tease between Weiss and Rosso during their fight.
- Shout-Out: "Number Five is alive!"
- In chapter 10, a Mook can be found hidden inside a box.
- The chapter featuring Cait Sith sneaking into a mako reactor's named "Solid Cait".
- The Tsviets themselves may be another Metal Gear Shout-Out, this time to the FOXHOUND antagonists from Metal Gear Solid.
- Rosso has a Sniper Wolf-esque inappropriate Lzherusskie accent.
- Azul is a pretty clear Vulcan Raven, Genius Brute with a BFG.
- Nero has a Psycho Mantis bondage look.
- Weiss is similar to Liquid Snake as the Big Bad, though Nero has the accent. Though he turns out to be more like MGS2 Revolver Ocelot, with Hojo possessing him to act as the real Liquid Snake analogue.
- Rosso has a Sniper Wolf-esque inappropriate
- Slasher Smile: Weiss pulls off a couple in the main game, as well as in the Online Mode.
- Slouch of Villainy: Weiss.
- Social Darwinist: Weiss, except the ones he deems worthy are the ones that will die.
- The Spartan Way: Shelke describes Deepground as "a hell far deeper than any you could imagine". The backstory is pretty hellish for many of the characters.
- Story-Breaker Power: Nero. He can instantly absorb anyone into his darkness with no defense against it bar Plot Armor. Thankfully he doesn't often venture away from Weiss.
- Stripperiffic: Shalua, Rosso, and Yuffie.
- Super-Soldier: The Tsviets.
- Talk to Everyone: A requirement when aboard the Shera.
- Token Mini-Moe: Shelke. The creators tried to justify it by having her physically stop aging at nine, but that doesn't explain why they had to make her so disturbingly sexy for a pre-adolescent or one of the closest things to a love interest Vincent has. Or have the camera focus on her rear in so many cutscenes.
- Too Dumb to Live: Lucrecia makes one stupid mistake after another. She ultimately realizes her role in making everything go wrong, and seals herself away.
- Turned Against Their Masters: The Tsviets, in the backstory.
- Two Shots from Behind the Bar: Vincent can retrieve the Hydra rifle in Edge from behind a bar inside a deserted building.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: The final levels, which turn into a Rail Shooter.
- Unexplained Accent: Nero has a British accent, Rosso has a Russian accent and Cait Sith has a Scottish one. Cait Sith is justified at least, supplementary material states that Reeve got the accent from the way his parents spoke. Also Cait Sith (pronounced "Kett Shee") is a mythological Gaelic creature whose name pretty much means "Cat Fairy".
- Unintentionally Unwinnable: The game auto-saves before and after most boss fights. It is possible to enter a boss fight without sufficient ammo and healing items to win. However, the game averts the usual problem with autosaving by making separate save files for each checkpoint. Therefore, you can simply go back to the last checkpoint and replay up to that point. It's annoying, but at least you don't have to restart the entire game. Plus, there's usually a shop and some kind of sealed door just before it's about to hit the fan.
- Villain Decay: Hojo. Even though he appears to be just as evil as he was in the original game, he is robbed of most of his actual character traits and becomes far more stereotypical, making it difficult for players to take him seriously. However, it is heavily implied that the reason for his more-stereotypical behavior was because he lost his sanity after his botched attempt at injecting himself with Jenova's cells.
- Villainous Breakdown: Rosso and later Nero. Hojo had a gargantuan one when Weiss and Nero merged together, causing him to be slowly erased from existance.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Weiss. Oh my, Weiss. He spends the entire game with no shirt on, even when armoring up as Omega Weiss.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Argento factors heavily in the backstory of the remaining Tsviets, but is only seen in the online multiplayer mode, leaving her fate and actions unknown.
- White Hair, Black Heart: Weiss has a mass of spiked white hair and even when he isn't possessed by Hojo, he seems fine with using Omega.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The Tsviets easily qualify. They had essentially been raised to be weapons by Shinra, so while they did do atrocious actions, the main characters also at the same time have some pity over them because of how they were raised.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Shelke is subjected to this; her weak body and constant reliance on mako meant Deepground only kept her around to find the Protomateria. Weiss ordered her killed once Rosso had retreived the Protomateria from Vincent.
