Sephiroth’s chilling encounter with Jenova in Final Fantasy 7 left a producer feeling like they were on the brink of a heart attack.

Final Fantasy VII is packed with horror elements, and surprisingly, the most chilling moments often don’t even involve the vampire you can recruit. Much of the fear can be traced back to Sephiroth, but according to one of the game’s producers, a specific scene featuring Jenova stands out as particularly unsettling.

Recently, some Japanese developers shared their most bizarre experiences while creating games. Among these stories is a jump scare that Takashi Tokita, a producer at Square Enix, encountered during the development of Final Fantasy VII for the original PlayStation.

While working on his PC, Tokita was startled when the Jenova cutscene unexpectedly began playing on the monitor of the PS dev kit. He recalled, “I felt like I was about to get a heart attack,” as translated by Automaton. He later confirmed that this was the scene in Nibelheim, where Sephiroth has a flashback involving his mother at the Nibel Reactor.

This moment is a spine-tingling piece of storytelling, marking a pivotal point in the villain’s transformation into rage and madness. Just thinking about it gives me chills, especially recalling my own surprise during that scene. I can only imagine the shock Tokita experienced.

The context of the technology adds to the intensity of the moment. This was during the early days of 3D graphics, with the team at what was then SquareSoft experimenting with groundbreaking technology. Cutscenes like these had never been seen on home consoles before, so when the dev kit malfunctioned, it must have felt eerie.

I would have thought the whole setup was haunted. Perhaps Tokita felt the same but chose to push through. Thankfully, he did, as it only reinforces how effective Sephiroth is as a villain, managing to instill fear even in his creators.

In a related note, Square Enix director Naoki Hamaguchi considered giving Cloud Strife a more realistic sword for the Final Fantasy VII Remake but ultimately decided that JRPG fans “wouldn’t accept it,” opting to stay true to the original design.