For references specific to Final Fantasy VII, go here.
Anime & Manga
- Gintama: When Gintoki rants about long cutscenes in games, some cutscenes play like Aerith's death in Final Fantasy VII, the opera scene in Parasite Eve (1998), and the scene where Squall meets Rinoa in Final Fantasy VIII.
- Gundam:
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny: Shinn Asuka gives Stellar Loussier a lake burial similar to what Cloud Strife gave Aerith Gainsborough. Amusingly, Aerith's Japanese VA also voices Lunamaria Hawke who eventually becomes Shinn's Second Love. Even better is Shinn's Japanese VA himself voices Zack Fair, Aerith's First Love. To say nothing most of the Japanese cast already voicing and will eventually voice FF characters.
- Mobile Suit Gundam 00: After activating Trans-Am mode for the first time, Gundam Exia performs an attack similar to the Omnislash. Its successor units, the 00 Raiser and 00 Qan[T], are both equipped with gunblade-like weapons and even perform a maneuver similar to the Blasting Zone Limit Break.
- A Sniper from Another World is Turned Into the Female Warrior's Fluffy Pet: Erika Hardlock looks like Tifa Lockhart, fights with martial arts, and her first shown mission has her pretending to be a prostitute to infiltrate a crime boss called Don Cordero's hideout.
- Undead Unluck: Upon seeing UMA Burn for the first time, Chikara considers it being similar to a summoned beast from "FF".
Comic Books
- Characters in Jenter are fans of VII or at very least Advent Children as one mentions having Sephiroth and Vincent in her Top 3 fictional crushes, another mentions having Cloud among hers, and a third has Cloud as a favorite character at the very least as a friend decorates her birthday card with a drawing of him holding a birthday cake.
- Scott Pilgrim:
- The last chapter of volume 5 is called World of Ruin.
- The Power of Understanding take the form of what appears to be Zangetsu. Either that or a Buster Sword.
- In the final battle when Scott enters Ramona's mind, it is very reminiscent of the scene in Final Fantasy VII where Cloud enters the lifestream to finish off Sephiroth. Compare this
to this.
Fan Works
- Arcanum Universe: Scarlet Heists: Cerise screams "Son of a Sandshrew!" after he's thrown off a bus.
- In PreCure in a Nutshell, Cure Finale gets the parody name of Cure Final Fantasy.
Films — Live-Action
- Charlie's Angels (2000): Immediately after the Halfway Plot Switch, one of the eponymous Power Trio asks help from two kids playing a two-player Final Fantasy VIII.
- Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: Scott plays a song from Final Fantasy IV on his guitar, though he says it is from Final Fantasy II.
Music
- The music video for the song "Sonata of Temptation" features a reenactment of the fight between Tifa and Loz from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, except Tifa wins this time.
Professional Wrestling
- At WrestleMania 33, The New Day cosplayed as the Warriors of Light, specifically the Samurai and Red Mage, a chocobo appeared in their entrance video, and Xavier Woods played the Final Fantasy victory song on his trombone.
Tabletop Games
- Magic: The Gathering: On June 13, 2025, cards will be released based on characters, items, and scenes from all the Final Fantasy games.
Video Games
- Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden:
- The title screen has a rotating series of messages, the first of which is "You don't need a reason to help people" - a quote from Final Fantasy IX.
- The game has two language options: English and Al Bhed.
- The final boss's first form has a single angel wing, just like Sephiroth. Its second form is Diablo (the dinosaur from Primal Rage) with Barkley's head badly photoshopped onto it.
- Some of the battle backgrounds used in the game were heavily modified from those used in Final Fantasy I, Final Fantasy II, and Lunar: Eternal Blue. The battle background for the Dragon's Neck Coliseum from Final Fantasy VI, meanwhile, was imported into the game without alterations.
- A plot-important substance is named "Manufacted Slamicite", spoofing the Manufacted Nethicite in Final Fantasy XII.
- Bayonetta: The Umbran Armor looks a lot like Magitek Armor.
- Borderlands 2:
- Axton the Commando includes the head Warrior of Light.
- One of the challenges is A Squall of Violence.
- Fly-Boy is constantly name-dropping Final Fantasy references."TOUGH TIDUS!""You can go kefka the taint.""None of you hojos can compare to me!""Now midgar out of here!"
- A Castle Full of Cats: In the bonus post-game content where you help Catherine find and dress-up more than a hundred cats for a party, several of these cats are wearing costumes that reference other pop-culture works. For example, you can find a cat cosplaying as Cloud Strife.
- Cuphead:
- During Sally Stageplay's fight, her third phase sees her appear as an angelic figure highly similar to Kefka's final boss form in Final Fantasy VI, using magical attacks that are labeled in the corner of the screen, including summoning a meteor. If you used a chandelier to kill her husband back in the first phase, he'll join the fight here posed similarly to the "Rest" sub-boss.
- Also involving VI, the Phantom Express bears a lot of similarity to the Phantom Train.
- Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair: When Monokuma decides to perform a One-Winged Angel transformation, he states that it's customary much like a certain RPG game before he gets cut off.Monokuma: This game... is over...? No no no... I'm not gonna let you finish yet... There's no way this can end before I've even transformed.
Sonia: ...Tr-Transform?
Monokuma: A transformation is customary in a final boss battle, right? You know, like that one role-playing game. You know what game I'm talking about. Final...
Kazuichi: D-Don't say it!
Monokuma: Now then... allow me to show you... I'll skip the second and third forms and go straight to... MY FINAL FORM!! - Deepwoken: Starkindred are Winged Humanoids who can put their wings away and force them back out. If you obtain the Starkindred Oath and say "I will never be a memory" in the chat, when you bring out your wings, only one will come out, a clear allusion to Sephiroth.
- Henry Stickmin: In "Infiltrating the Airship", Henry can fight Right-Hand Man in the style of Final Fantasy VI before striking himself with an Attack Backfire.
- Honkai: Star Rail: The common Grand Miracles in "Divergent Universe: Arcadian Chronicles" have their names derived from pre-existing video games. Usually, the parody names are either the inverse or the synonym of the original references' titles; one of which is named "First Fantasy" as a reference to Final Fantasy.
- In Later Alligator, Sweet Geraldine's final request of a claw game prize is a doll of the protagonist of Final Friendcity, Clod Stripes. Interestingly, his hair is more similar to Zack's than Cloud's.
- Lunar: Eternal Blue has large avian pack animals used by Jean's troupe. The characters nearly call it a chocobo, but eventually settle on chuckaboo.
- Neptunia:
- Neptune herself will sometimes hum the Final Fantasy victory theme.
- One of the recurring enemies is the Choocoboo, which is only differentiated from the Chocobo by spelling and having pink plumage.
- Horsebirds won't make any sense unless you've played Final Fantasy XIV where Chocobos were renamed such (for about ten seconds, due to fan outcry). Compile Heart took it up to eleven.
- In the original game, one of the NPCs in Lastation is aspiring game creator Zach Unfair, whose favorite title is GG7.
- A DLC boss is a "Traitor Knight" that resembles a gender-flipped Kain Highwind.
- In the first game's remake, one of the Quests for Zeca Ruins No.2 has the client searching online for the definition to "Orthros" and gets two results: Twins fighting over bentos and stuff, and An Purple Octopus.
- In the second game's remake, the area of a quest's origin is named Midgar.
- One of the items obtained by Stella in her minigame is named "Diamond Dust". It's description is "This is a rod that controls absolute cold, not a transforming motorcycle."
- One of the items is called Hero Drink. Sadly, it isn't a buff item.
- The character Ein Al from Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart is named after the franchise, with her outfit being a Whole-Costume Reference to Lightning's Lilitu garb from Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.
- One Back-to-Back Badasses cutscene with Noire and Ein Al shows the former wearing, fittingly enough, the Equilibrium Garb.
- Neptunia VII's title is an homage to Final Fantasy VII. The odd title itself seems to be a reference to how Square Enix stopped re-numbering the games that they exported to Western audiences (since three games in the series weren't exported to the United States for years) and instead opted to go for the same labeling worldwide, although in this game's case, the seemingly-random jump forward is entirely deliberate.
- S-Sha, being the personification of Square Enix, naturally references its flagship IP a lot.
- Her overall appearance evokes Cloud, Squall and Lightning, while her Gold Form gains a single wing, just like Sephiroth.
- One of her special attacks evokes Cloud's Omnislash as it was portrayed in Advent Children, and another recalls both Ultima, Holy, Flare and Meteor, traditional high-tier Final Fantasy spells.
- After winning a battle, there's a chance that S-Sha will - like Neptune - hum the Final Fantasy victory theme or say "This is my story."
- S-Sha's backstory is a giant reference to how Squaresoft merged with Enix Corporation, complete with S-Sha mentioning about how she failed at making a movie.
- When the Candidates have to fight her to enlist her help in the third arc, at 50% health, she says: "Your fear will be gone in a flash."
- S-Sha on saving the CPUs from brainwashing. "You don't need a reason to help people."
- Parasite Eve (1998): A chocobo could be seen in a banner at the entrance to the Museum of American History. The game itself was actually conceived from an earlier draft of Final Fantasy VII.
- Parasite Eve 2: The gunblade could be unlocked as an optional weapon.
- The 3rd Birthday: One of the unlockable costumes is that of Lightning's. Lightning and protagonist Aya Brea are both voiced by Maaya Sakamoto in the Japanese version.
- Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game:
- Wallace's Mystery Shop sells "Never-ending Fantasy" and "Speedy the Porcupine" video games for stats. We can see a blue turtle shell and the dwarf's axe from Golden Axe in the background.
- Gideon literally sprouts one angel wing during one of his attacks. His Battle in the Center of the Mind form brings to mind Kefka's final form.
- Stephen Stills' clear-out move is a localized Power Geyser, taken straight from Terry Bogard of Fatal Fury fame. In a similar vein, Scott uses a Tatsumaki Sempuukyaku, Kim does a Spinning Lariat WITH DRUMSTICKS, and Ramona appears to have stolen a trick from May's playbook (spinning around wildly with an odd weapon outstretched, in this case a bag).
- Sonic.exe: Whenever the titular character catches someone, he laughs like Kefka Palazzo.
- South Park: The Stick of Truth: Stan's victory pose at the end of battle is reminiscent of Cloud Strife's. On top of that, Stan's 'Way of the Sword' skill is similar to Cloud's Omnislash.
- Terraria:
- The 1.0.5 update introduced Vanity slots, allowing players to wear decorative outfits over their armor. The items included with its introduction include a clown costume.
- The Breaker Blade looks identical to Cloud's Buster Sword, complete with Materia embedded in the handle. It's even more hilariously huge than Cloud's one too.
- Undertale:
- The opening of Mettaton's dramatic opera trap is very similar to the Opera scene from Final Fantasy VI. The two themes related to it also use very similar instruments. The background music for the following scene is also highly reminiscent of the background music for the battle that follows FFVI's opera scene.
- Encounter Undyne after you've befriended her in a previous playthrough, and she'll end her pre-battle speech by defiantly proclaiming that she, Undyne, will knock you down.
- One of Asriel's attacks is the HYPER GONER, named after Kefka's Goner attack in the Super Nintendo version of Final Fantasy VI.
- The Epic Battle Fantasy series features a few references:
- A Tonberry (wearing a Pyramid Head helmet), a Red Mage and a Black Waltz appear as the second, third and fifth foes in Brawl Royale, respectively. Expies of all three characters, named Pyramid Helmet, Crimson Mage and Cobalt Mage replace them in the EBF Collection version of the game.
- Epic Battle Fantasy 3: Snow sculptures of the Warriors of Light appear in Glacier Valley. The sculptures double as nods to the Black Mages series of animations Matt Roszak made before creating the series.
- Cleaver, a reocurring Limit Break for Matt, is a direct reference to Omnislash. This gets lampshaded in Epic Battle Fantasy 4:"The swordsman always has an ultimate multi-slash attack. That's me. I'm not going to be original here."
- In Epic Battle Fantasy 5, Matt may comment about an alternate name he had, which references Omnislash as well as Squall's signature attack, Lion Heart:"I considered naming that attack "The Omnislashing Lion Heart", but that was a bit of a mouthful."
- The Red Mage/Crimson Mage reappears in Epic Battle Fantasy 2, as the first of the game's two shopkeepers.
Webcomics
- The Chosen Four: "42 is just a number, and there is no secret to revive General Leo."
- El Goonish Shive: NP: "An NPC by any other name", the naming of the Cleric has tons of shout-outs running through Ellen's head◊, with the middle of the sixth-from-last line starting with "Final Fantasy Onions".
- Questionable Content: Marigold ends up playing Final Fantasy VI all day after the party at Emily's parent's house.
Web Original
- SCP Foundation: SCP-1715 is an entity that joins into small online communities (message boards, wiki databases, etc.). It is mentioned it joined into a Final Fantasy discussion board once.
Web Video
- Dragon Ball Z Abridged: In Episode 8, Krillin kills the Saibamen with a Limit Break, then the Final Fantasy victory music plays.
Western Animation
- The Amazing World of Gumball: "The Console" episode is one giant homage to JRPGs, especially Final Fantasy VII and VIII.
- Anais at one point dresses in a hat similar to Luso's from Final Fantasy Tactics A2, and holds a rounded BFS similar to the infamous "pizza cutter" in his character artwork. According to her, the sword also doubles as a gun, similar to Squall's Gunblade in Final Fantasy VIII.
- The trio decide to enter a random battle, just to sing along with the "epic battle theme". It is the same music as random encounters from Final Fantasy VII.
- The Game Child's true form resembles Final Fantasy VIII's Big Bad, Ultimecia, with Sephiroth's hair and halo.
- When Gumball starts summoning friends, the attack greatly resembles the Final Fantasy VII summon "Knights of the Round". Richard's portion resembles "Bahamut Zero". Banana Joe's part, Thousand Blows, is an almost shot for shot recreation of the Cacture 1,000 Needles summon attack from Final Fantasy VIII.
- At one point, Gumball and Darwin get Cloud and Sephiroth's hair.
- Robot Chicken has worked the franchise into a couple skits:
- "Final Fantasy Burger Joint" is all about the cast of VII being Burger Fools, with Cloud chopping up a potato in a battle scene, then fighting his Bad Boss Sephiroth when ordered to come in on Saturday.
- In "Spring of the Drowned Girl" (itself a big Ranma ½ parody), the Nerd briefly cosplays as Tifa while offering to "be your final fantasy".
- A sketch from "Fool's Goldfinger" has Cloud among the video game characters appearing in a musical revolving around gay video game characters. Cloud's role in the play is an allusion to the infamous Wall Market brothel infiltration sequence in VII, where Cloud was forced by Aerith to crossdress against his will, but he reluctantly did so because he wanted to enter the brothel and rescue Tifa.
- A sketch from "May Cause Random Wolf Attacks" has Squall Leonhart visit a weapon shop and show off his gunblade. A UFO then crashes into the shop with a bear who stabs Squall in the chest with his own gunblade and bites his head off.
- After Biggs and Wedge had become recurring names in the franchise for years, Star Wars would return the favor when Star Wars: The Bad Batch introduced a Cid as a major supporting character.
- Steven Universe:
- In "Steven the Sword Fighter", Steven has a collection of action figures, one of which is a Pikachu-Moogle hybrid, and another is a Cloud lookalike.
- In "Rose's Room", Steven plays a video game that uses some Final Fantasy sound effects, and one of the characters is named Wedge (referencing two of the games' recurring characters Biggs and Wedge).