Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion ushered the PSP game back into the limelight, bringing its heart-wrenching tale to modern consoles. What's more, the release of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion meant the return of one of Final Fantasy's most compelling romantic pairs: Zack Fair and Aerith Gainsborough.
As Zack falls into the Sector 5 church, he wonders if he's in heaven. It's the perfect introduction for Aerith's character, who stands over him among a small crop of flowers that grow just beyond the church pews. As the two characters converse under stained-glass windows, the game sets up a budding relationship through the promise of a date. The events that follow across the course of Crisis Core only help to cement the two's strength as a romantic duo, as clever cutscenes and mechanics are used to demonstrate their bond.
Zack and Aerith's Budding Relationship
As Aerith shows Zack around Sector 5, the two wind up in its market section, a dilapidated area where some of the slums' residents peddle wares. It is here where a few non-combat oriented minigames open up to the player. While they aren't exactly high-stakes, they serve as both a necessary respite from the wild happenings of the rest of Crisis Core's plot, and as a means to show just how charming the characters' first meeting is. From blending oils to make perfume, to collecting materia, to playing a number-guessing game with Aerith, the small actions help to demonstrate the budding romance that forms between the two, as both Aerith and the people of the slums endear to Zack's kind-hearted antics.
After the sequence culminates with Zack buying Aerith a pink hair ribbon, an accessory that would later become synonymous with her design in the events of Final Fantasy 7, their relationship grows further throughout the game in short but purposeful cutscenes. From Aerith comforting a crying Zack as he grieves a tumultuous loss, to him suggesting she sell her flowers across Midgar, helping her to build the perfect wagon to achieve this, the minimal but efficient time the characters spend together strengthens their portrayal. Through mutual encouragement and support, the two characters shine even through their limited screen time.
Though Zack is pulled back into the unforgiving world of his Shinra missions, the game's use of memory becomes a clever way to further strengthen their ties when the two characters are apart. As Zack recalls a moment of Aerith in the church, far into a grievous situation that he's found himself in, a cutscene plays where she tells him of twenty-three tiny wishes she's listed down. The weight of the scene becomes all the more heavy when she goes on to tell him that she's consolidated these wishes down into just one: wanting to spend more time with him.
Beyond its narrative implications, Crisis Core's apt use of its battle system provides additional strength in the emotional tether between the two characters. Crisis Core's Digital Mind Wave system becomes all the more heavy in the game's final act, where the significance of Zack meeting Aerith is exemplified as he remembers their moments together during an arduous last stand. While Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion doesn't spend hours showing the two of them together, its clever portrayal makes long cutscenes unnecessary. Just hearing Aerith's voice line through the DMW as she shouts "hell-llooo!" for him to wake up is enough to feel the impact of this romantic pair and its reverberating effects across the plot itself.
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion is available now for the Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
