Game Information | Character Cameos in Ehrgeiz

Ehrgeiz is a fighting game that was released by Square in May of 1999.

50 years ago, a weapon constructed from an unknown material was found in the remains of a German castle. The weapon came to be known as Ehrgeiz, and it was presented to the winner of a tournament that found the world's greatest fighter.

In the Middle East, a sinister organization has been constructing an excavation site to explore the ancient ruins believed to hold the secret of immortality. However, the key to the final door in the ruins could not be found. A legend has surfaced among the people, proposing that the mysterious stone (materia) embedded within Ehrgeiz is the key to the door.

The ambitious, hoping to unveil the mystery of the ruins, are set on obtaining Ehrgeiz in the championship tournament.

The real story doesn't develop much beyond that, with the individual characters getting a small movie detailing what they did after, but that's only the fighting side. There is also the RPG Mode, which a basic Hack & Slash run through, but this also has a rather weak story involving an archaeologist and his assistant walking through the ruins, and somehow being transported to a small dimension with a single village, surrounded by the main dungeon. The archaeologist continues through the dungeon in search of the spring of eternal life.

The game's true shining light are the appearances of Cloud, Tifa, Sephiroth, Vincent, Yuffie, a beast that looks surprisingly like Red XIII (named Django), and Zack (yes, Zack!! However, he‘s just a carbon copy of Cloud, except for the hair...) all transported from the FF7 world via a mysterious portal to Earth. Unfortunately, all they do is fight and have nothing to do with the story at all (their ending movie is a collection of movies from FF7 set to "One Winged Angel"), but the fact they are there is special. In the RPG mode, you can also handle some of the weapons and armour that Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, and Cid used in FF7, as well as the materia Fire, Ice, Thunder, Quake, Exit, and Ultima.

Other than those few notes, no mention of any of the story from FF7 is mentioned at all in the game.

To see screenshots of the FF7 characters as they appear in Ehrgeiz, click here.

Written by Mum, September 2004.