An empty camp on a hilltop at night, bedrolls and packs arranged around a small fire, a lantern hanging from a spear and a faint green glow on the horizon.

Nine travelers

The Party

Nine playable characters, each with a weapon type, a home and a final Limit Break. Two of them are optional, and the story’s biggest secrets about them stay folded away below.

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All nineRequiredOptional

Cloud Strife

Joins the story

A mercenary who says he once served in SOLDIER, Shinra’s elite fighting force. He joins AVALANCHE for pay, not for their cause.

Weapon: Broadswords
Limit: Omnislash (level 4)
From: Nibelheim

Reveal story spoiler

Cloud never made it into SOLDIER. He enlisted as an ordinary Shinra infantryman, and his memories of being a SOLDIER at Nibelheim really belonged to his friend Zack Fair.

Sources: Final Fantasy Wiki, Cloud Strife (opens in a new tab); PlayStation / Square Enix (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Limit (Final Fantasy VII) (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Final Fantasy VII weapons (opens in a new tab)

Barret Wallace

Joins the story

The leader of AVALANCHE, the resistance cell fighting Shinra from the Midgar slums, with a gun in place of one arm.

Weapon: Gun arms
Limit: Catastrophe (level 4)
From: Corel; its survivors now live in North Corel

Sources: Final Fantasy Wiki, Barret Wallace (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Limit (Final Fantasy VII) (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Final Fantasy VII weapons (opens in a new tab)

Tifa Lockhart

Joins the story

Cloud’s childhood friend from Nibelheim. She runs Seventh Heaven, the bar in the Sector 7 slums that doubles as AVALANCHE’s base.

Weapon: Knuckles and gloves
Limit: Final Heaven (level 4)
From: Nibelheim

Sources: Final Fantasy Wiki, Tifa Lockhart (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Seventh Heaven (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Limit (Final Fantasy VII) (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Final Fantasy VII weapons (opens in a new tab)

Aerith Gainsborough

Spelled Aeris in 1997Joins the story

A flower seller from the Sector 5 slums, followed by Shinra for reasons the story reveals slowly. The 1997 English release spells her name Aeris.

Weapon: Staves
Limit: Great Gospel (level 4)
From: Grew up in the Sector 5 slums of Midgar

Reveal story spoiler

Aerith is the last surviving Cetra, strictly half Cetra through her mother. She is killed by Sephiroth while praying at the altar in the Forgotten Capital, the moment that ends the first disc.

Sources: Final Fantasy Wiki, Aerith Gainsborough (opens in a new tab); PlayStation (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Sector 5 Church (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Limit (Final Fantasy VII) (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Final Fantasy VII weapons (opens in a new tab)

Red XIII

Joins the story

A wise, lion like creature the party rescues from a Shinra laboratory. Red XIII is the code name Shinra’s scientists gave him.

Weapon: Headdresses
Limit: Cosmo Memory (level 4)
From: Cosmo Canyon

Reveal story spoiler

His real name is Nanaki. He is 48 years old, which makes him a teenager by the standards of his long lived kind.

Sources: Final Fantasy Wiki, Red XIII (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Limit (Final Fantasy VII) (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Final Fantasy VII weapons (opens in a new tab)

Yuffie Kisaragi

Optional

A young ninja from Wutai with a sharp eye for other people’s Materia. You can finish the game without ever recruiting her.

Weapon: Shuriken
Limit: All Creation (level 4)
From: Wutai

Reveal story spoiler

On the road to Wutai she steals the whole party’s Materia, and only hands it back after a chase through her hometown.

Sources: Final Fantasy Wiki, Yuffie Kisaragi (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Limit (Final Fantasy VII) (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Final Fantasy VII weapons (opens in a new tab)

Cait Sith

Joins the story

A fortune telling cat riding a giant moogle. He joins at the Gold Saucer and is never forced into the active party.

Weapon: Megaphones
Limit: Slots (level 2, his highest; he has no level 3 or 4 Limit)
From: Met at the Gold Saucer, where he tells fortunes

Reveal story spoiler

Cait Sith is a remotely operated robot. His controller is Reeve, an executive at Shinra, who first uses him to spy on the party before coming to share their cause.

Sources: Final Fantasy Wiki, Cait Sith (Final Fantasy VII) (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Reeve Tuesti (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Limit (Final Fantasy VII) (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Final Fantasy VII weapons (opens in a new tab)

Vincent Valentine

Optional

A quiet gunman waiting in the basement of the Shinra Mansion in Nibelheim. Recruiting him is optional.

Weapon: Guns
Limit: Chaos (level 4)
From: Found in the Shinra Mansion in Nibelheim

Reveal story spoiler

Vincent is a former Turk who locked himself in a coffin in that basement and slept there, mostly undisturbed, for over twenty years.

Sources: Final Fantasy Wiki, Vincent Valentine (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Limit (Final Fantasy VII) (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Final Fantasy VII weapons (opens in a new tab)

Cid Highwind

Joins the story

A pilot living in Rocket Town, the settlement built around the launch site of Shinra’s No. 26 rocket.

Weapon: Spears
Limit: Highwind (level 4)
From: Rocket Town

Sources: Final Fantasy Wiki, Cid Highwind (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Rocket Town (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Limit (Final Fantasy VII) (opens in a new tab); Final Fantasy Wiki, Final Fantasy VII weapons (opens in a new tab)

Limit Breaks listed here are each character’s final one in the 1997 game. Every member except Cait Sith learns a level 4 Limit from a unique manual once their earlier Limits are learned.