Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's Elena And Rude Fight References The Original Game

thegamer.com:

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a great celebration of the original title whilst being its own unique experience. It's constantly paying homage to the game that it's building upon, full of little references, foreshadowing, and adorable moments scattered across the story for OG Final Fantasy 7 fans to point at and appreciate. Some of them are so subtle that they're only just being discovered weeks after launch, which is the case for our topic of discussion today.

First shared by Twitter user SG_ANGUS, they noticed that you can find a very subtle nod to the original Final Fantasy 7 during the first fight with Elena and Rude in the Mythril Cave. A little ways into the fight, Elena will target Cloud with a move called the Elena Knuckle, a very slow and telegraphed attack that has her wind up a punch for a long time and then strike.

However, if you quickly run over to the nearby cliff edge while she's winding up her punch, and then dodge out of the way when she goes to strike you, Elena will miss and roll rather comically down the cliff side and leave the fight momentarily. She then runs all the way around to the entrance of the arena, catches her breath, and rejoins the fight.

Those of you who played the original Final Fantasy 7 will know that Elena shows up a lot more throughout the entire game, and this fight in Rebirth is very clearly referencing a scene in the original in which Elena confronts Cloud at Icicle Inn. In the scene, Elena is confident that she can take down Cloud with one punch, and the game then tasks you with dodging that punch.

Dodge it successfully and Elena goes sailing past Cloud and starts rolling head first down a snowy hill, much to the dismay of the two Shinra soldiers accompanying her. You can even see that Elena rolls off the cliff in Rebirth extremely similarly to how she rolls down the hill in the original, so it's definitely a little nod to the joke. Now people know it's a thing, I see more cliff dives for Elena in the near future.