It’s good to know that I’m not the only one who finds video game bugs incredibly eerie. A creepy bug that happens while you’re fully immersed in an experience can create a sense of fear, even if it’s an irrational feeling. After all, how many creepypastas have we seen originate with strange bootlegged versions of games?
Recently, in a post on X, Japanese indie developer Kenpi Beniimo posed a challenge to his peers: “I’d like to hear about the craziest bugs game creators have ever encountered (nice spot, Automaton).” While a lot of the responses focused on technical quirks which manifested in strange ways, Square Enix developer Takashi Tokita had a ghost story to share.
Stealing the Planet from Mother
“When I was doing work on my PC during Final Fantasy 7’s development, suddenly the Jenova cutscene started playing on the PlayStation’s dev kit’s monitor, and I felt like I was about to get a heart attack,” Tokita wrote.
Tokita is referring to the flashback scene in Nibelheim, where we see Sephiroth lamenting that Shinra is stealing the planet from his “Mother.” He then destroys some machinery and uncovers the alien Jenova, who is encased in a tank of liquid. The entire scene from start to finish is quite eerie, so it’s no wonder Tokita thought he was being haunted when the cutscene randomly played.
This scene has already been recreated in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, but the new visuals took away some of that natural ominousness that accompanied games from the ’90s.
The thread produced some very interesting stories, especially from the era of gaming where arcade machines were dominant. Game developer and artist Itau shared an interesting bug involving total cumulative plays.
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“There was an arcade game bug which would make the game unplayable after the cumulative number of players hit 65,536,” wrote Itau. “The issue started appearing in arcades in Tokyo, and the programmers had to go deliver the patched ROMs to all of the arcades. When I came to work, it was total chaos. My colleague told me, ‘If it’s somewhere far away, just mailing the ROMs will do, but the arcades in Osaka are probably going to go out of order today or tomorrow’ and set off for Osaka.”
At that moment, I’m sure Itau’s colleague was thankful for the Tokyo Olympics and the advent of bullet trains.
Final Fantasy 7
- Released
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January 31, 1997
- ESRB
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T for Teen: Blood, Fantasy Violence, Language, Mild Suggestive Themes
