Final Fantasy 7 recently turned 29, so, if you played the original at or near release, insert "we're old" joke here. To celebrate the occasion, character designer Tetsuya Nomura—who has since gone on to have quite a career, including serving as a prominent voice in the ongoing Remake trilogy—shared a seldom-seen bit of concept art.
What's more, he semi-casually revealed that FF7 almost had a big thing in common with the Remakes. In fact, it's something that could not be realized until 2020's groundbreaking, Midgar-centric, first chapter arrived on store shelves.
The concept art, viewable above, comes courtesy of a tweet from Final Fantasy 7's official Twitter account. There's a lot to take in; I'm particularly fond of the dragons storming Midgar. Hate when that happens. Above the "early design" of Cloud, who I must say, doesn't look far off from his finished look, there's a gun-toting fellow named "Johnny the Needle."
Don't mistake this discarded character concept for the comedic fellow named Johnny who we got (a little bit) in Final Fantasy 7 and (a lot more in) Remake and Rebirth. Turns out, this Johnny had elements "later incorporated into Reno." Also...
