I love Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII Reunion as much as any Final Fantasy 7 fan, but maybe in a slightly different way to most people. The Square Enix remaster features upgraded graphics and refined combat, and the plot is instrumental to the new Final Fantasy 7 Remake storyline. Zack, meanwhile, is one of the most friendly and well-liked heroes in the series’ history.
So why do I love Reunion so much? Well, it’s certainly not the combat, which very much feels like a handheld game with a shiny new coat of paint. No, the reason for why Crisis Core clicks with me comes down to the moment when Zack encounters Aerith in the Sector 5 slums church.
Zack and Aerith’s romance, coined as "Zerith" by fans, begins with Zack being woken up by the disembodied voice of Aerith. At first, he believes that she’s an angel, but then he comes to his senses when he realizes she’s physically there in the room with him. He asks her out on a date, but Aerith initially turns down the hasty offer. He notices the surrounding flowers–a rare sight in the slums–and suggests that they go topside to Midgard to sell them. The two walk around the Sector 5 slums, getting to know each other, and Zack buys her a pink hair ribbon.
After hanging around Sector 5 for a while, Zerith goes to a park located in Sector 6. Aerith reveals her fear of SOLDIERs–scientifically enhanced super soldiers with a deep thirst for combat–not knowing that Zack is one himself. After he reveals his identity to her, she says that she’s not afraid of him and finds his glowing blue eyes “so pretty.” He flirtatiously leans into her to give her a better look at them, when suddenly Zack’s phone rings, and headquarters requests him to return.
What's so special about these two scenes is how they flesh out the mysterious relationship of the two, which is only hinted at in the original game (Aerith tells us about a ‘boyfriend,’ but that's it). These scenes give context and complexity to their story. Unlike the rest of Reunion, which is fast-paced and full of short-burst missions, the Zerith scenes offer calm and contemplative moments. The game really clicked for me as I watched their tentative courtship. It was touching to see a high-definition Aerith hug a crying Zack, who'd just recently lost his comrade and mentor Angeal in the story.
While Zerith’s romance may not seem to be the focal point of the game, its legacy is felt in the main Final Fantasy story. Aerith’s outfit in Final Fantasy 7 is influenced by her love for Zack, as you find out in Reunion that it was Zack who bought her the iconic pink hair ribbon, suggesting that she wear pink the next time they hung out. It’s through their interactions in Sector 5 and 6 that we learn Aerith was terrified of the big, open blue sky, but found it as wondrous as looking into Zack’s blue SOLDIER-created, mako-infused eyes. It was Zack’s observation of the lack of flowers in Midgard that prompted Aerith to become the tragic flower girl Final Fantasy 7 fans know her as now.
It is also Aerith who keeps Zack going until the bitter end in Reunion. After the Nibelheim mission goes south and brings forth the conflict that propels Final Fantasy 7’s story arc, Zack decides to return to Midgard, taking the comatose Cloud Strife with him. Zack wants to go back in order to fulfill his promise to Aerith. A flashback reveals that Aerith handed him a sheet of paper with “23 tiny wishes,” but because she feared he wouldn’t remember them all, she summed them up with a simple request: “I’d like to spend more time with you.” On the way back to Midgard, Zack is given the “89th letter” that Aerith sent to him. In it, she writes: “It’s already been four years now. [...] I don’t even know where to send them anymore. I really hope that this final letter that I'm writing gets to you. By the way, the flowers are selling very well. They make everyone so happy, thanks to you Zack.”
Distraught to discover that four years have passed without his knowing and that Aerith stopped trying to reach out to him, Zack pushes his way to a final fight with Shinra officials, but succumbs to his wounds as the vocal theme song “Why” sung by Ayaka plays in the background.
Playing through chunks of Reunion felt like hard work, and I was worried that nostalgia had tinted my memory of the game. Zack and Aerith’s romance proved me wrong. It made me realize that I love the game because of them. Both characters meet gut-wrenching ends in the original narrative and act as a jumping off point for Final Fantasy 7 Remake. I’ve always been fascinated with tragic romances, and the way they communicate a sad, yet beautiful truth about the temporal nature of humanity. Life, through the eyes of Zerith, is fleeting, but it’s in that fleeting nature you learn to appreciate the blue skies and flowers you see along the way.