June 1, 2008

Midgar ミッドガル (Middogaru ? Remake

Original Background information Type City Region Midgar Area , eastern continent, Gaia Affiliation(s) Shinra Electric Power Company Residents Avalanche

Aerith Gainsborough

Elmyra Gainsborough

President Shinra

Rufus Shinra

Scarlet

Heidegger

Hojo

Palmer

Reeve Tuesti

Shinra Manager

Turks

SOLDIER

Don Corneo

Mayor Domino

Deputy Mayor Hart Gameplay details Items Various, depending on area Quests Various, depending on area

Take a good look. It's because of that great big pizza in the sky that people down there gotta struggle to survive. Barret Wallace

Midgar is the capital city and power base of the Shinra Electric Power Company in the world of Gaia. It is a major location in Final Fantasy VII, Before Crisis -Final Fantasy VII-, Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-, and Final Fantasy VII Remake, and also appears in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII-.

Midgar opens Final Fantasy VII and is the location for the game's beginning. The city can be accessed again after the party has the Highwind by finding the key in Bone Village, but only the Sector 5 Slums and the Wall Market can be explored. Midgar is often seen only at night, especially the topside area. Gameplay in Final Fantasy VII, Before Crisis, and Crisis Core all keep the city in the dark while the player is above the plate. It is only when they are in the slums that sunlight can be seen trickling through the metal structure. Also, the Midgar area of the Final Fantasy VII world map is always in night time. One notable exception is the opening cinematic in Final Fantasy VII Remake, which begins with a daytime flyby of the city.

Midgar is one of the most iconic locations in the Final Fantasy VII games and the whole Final Fantasy series. It embodies many themes put forward in Final Fantasy VII, of the greedy capitalism of Shinra and the authoritarian power the company can project, the environmental disaster that faces the planet, and how new is rapidly replacing the old, displacing the lives of many people. The first part of the Final Fantasy VII Remake project takes place entirely in Midgar. The developers chose to focus on Midgar as it best represents the world of Final Fantasy VII and is said to have strong elements of color and variety.[1]

Powered by eight giant mako reactors that were erected by the Shinra Electric Power Company, Midgar is known as the city of mako. Rising 300 meters above ground level, the steel plates surrounding the Shinra Building offer comfortable residential districts for its well-heeled citizens. Below these plates, however, are the dark and derelict slums for the impoverished. Loading Screen, Final Fantasy VII Remake

Midgar is the most technologically advanced city on the planet. Its large circular structure is supported above the ground by eight mako reactors and a central pillar, with various other supports around the city. On top of the structure lies the city proper, divided into eight sectors, while underneath it lie the slums for the city's unfortunate and downtrodden. Midgar was once eight individual towns, but their names have been forgotten in favor of referring to the different areas as sectors.

Governed as a police state, the city is home to some of the richest and most powerful people who run most of the city's affairs from the central Shinra Building, which dominates the cityscape. Among these people are the Shinra executives, the de facto world leader, President Shinra, and the figurehead city leader, Mayor Domino. Midgar's construction and development is overseen by Shinra's head of urban development, Reeve Tuesti.

Construction of the city began in 1976, to provide residence for the Shinra Electric Power Company's growing investment and employment base. The city is under continuous construction throughout the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII.

Thanks to its eight mako reactors, the city's massive power demands are met, but at a cost to the surrounding countryside, which has become a barren wasteland due to the city sapping the surrounding life energy. Due to this, the city and its reactors are a prime target for terrorism/rebel groups like Avalanche who seek to restore the planet to its former state and stop Shinra from sapping its life energy. Shinra's darkest secrets lurk miles underground with an entire hidden city home to their Deepground program. The city runs on Midgar Standard Time, the only known time zone in the series.

Powered by eight giant mako reactors that were erected by the Shinra Electric Power Company, Midgar is known as the city of mako. Rising 300 meters above ground level, the steel plates surrounding the Shinra Building offer comfortable residential districts for its well-heeled citizens. Below these plates, however, are the dark and derelict slums for the impoverished. Final Fantasy VII Remake loading screen

Described as a "technological pizza", the city is divided up into nine sectors: Sectors 1 through 8 refer to the eight districts of the city, with Sector 0 being the central district that holds the main headquarters of Shinra. Between each sector is a mako reactor that provides the sectors with electricity, each reactor situated counterclockwise to a sector (e.g. No.1 Reactor sits between Sector 8 and Sector 1) with No.1 being the most northern, and the sectors increasing in number going clockwise.

The ground-level slums are accessed either via the city's train system running through the Corkscrew Tunnel or via hidden paths threaded throughout the city's sewers. A secret city, known as Deepground, is located below both Midgar and the slums, only accessible via the Sector 0 reactor.

In the original Final Fantasy VII, the raid on Midgar glitch allows one to skip the entire return to Midgar on Part 2.

Upper plate [ edit | edit source ]

Sector 0

The Shinra Building dominates the Midgar skyline from Sector 0. Mayor Domino works in the building's upper floors. Although supposedly in control of the city, he is little more than a librarian; President Shinra himself rules the city from the top floor, with executive Reeve Tuesti in charge of the city's urban development.



Sector 1





Sector 4





Sector 5





Sector 6





Sector 7





Sector 8

Midgar Highway





Ground level [ edit | edit source ]

Midgar Slums

A large slum that developed under the elevated city, they are a warren of desperation and underhand/criminal activity.



Midgar Wasteland

A wasteland that surrounds the city and slums of Midgar, the Midgar Wasteland is the result of Shinra's siphoning of the area's Mako energy, sapping the planet of its life energy.



Below ground [ edit | edit source ]

Sewers

Deepground





Midgar is located to the northwest on Gaia's eastern continent directly at the center of the Midgar Wasteland.





Behind the scenes [ edit | edit source ]

In the earliest ideas for the game, Final Fantasy VII was to take place in the real-world New York City, from which the fictional city of Midgar was born. Yusuke Naora, the art director for Final Fantasy VII, designed many of the locations for the game and is most proud of his work on Midgar.

I had the image of a pizza in mind when I designed that city, and I really like how it turned out.[2] Yuusuke Naora

The "pizza" theme is referred to in the game with Barret calling the upper plate such, there being a track called "Underneath the Rotting Pizza" on the soundtrack, and the mayor of Midgar—Domino, and his deputy, Hart (Hut)—being named after pizza chains.

According to the Ultimania Omega, in an early draft of the script, Midgar was built by a group of "cultured" people wishing to escape the world below, which was rapidly running out of Mako energy. This early version of the script described Midgar as "a misshapen city built in the sky, covered in iron plates and the stench of sewage".

A giant Midgar model was shown at the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete press screening party in the Sony Building in Tokyo. It was similar to the model of Midgar found on Floor 65 of Shinra Headquarters in Final Fantasy VII. It even features an incomplete Sector 6 plate, which was still under construction during the events of Final Fantasy VII.

When rebuilding Midgar for the Final Fantasy VII Remake, the team referred to Advent Children and other previous works, but one of the main things they set out to redo was the scale of the city to make it more realistic regarding the size between the buildings and the density. Though the team haven't done everything to the same level of detail as the visitable areas, they mapped out the entire city and what would be in each area. The team even worked out the right size and construction for how a city like Midgar would exist in the real world, how big the supporting pillars would need to be and their honeycomb structure, as well as where the tunnels would have to go for it to still work as a physical structure. The city is being built from the center outwards and the the architectural style changes further out from the central pillar.[3]

The Remake strives to show more of the ordinary life of regular citizens living in Midgar. The original version starts with the bombing mission as the developers wanted to start in the middle of the action. Yet, going straight from the bombing mission into the streets amid panicked citizens wouldn't convey the impact the destruction of a mako reactor has on people's everyday lives, and thus it was decided the Remake would start with a "domestic kind of scene." The playground serves to distinguish the economic inequality between citizens, which exists not just between the slum dwellers and those who live above the plate, but also within each sector, as each plate is its own city. The playground is used to show there are impoverished areas in the upper plate areas too.[3]



Musical themes [ edit | edit source ]

While the city as a whole has several themes, "Under the Rotting Pizza" (腐ったピザの下で, Kusatta Piza no Shita De?) is the most prominent in Midgar, playing during most of its slum areas. The theme is named after the "pizza" plate of Midgar above the slums. For the upper areas, "Lurking in the Darkness" (闇に潜む, Yami ni Hisomu?) plays as the main theme.

Throughout the rest of Midgar's slums, "The Oppressed" plays in the markets, while in the Sector 5 Slums Church "Flowers Blooming in the Church" (教会に咲く花, Kyōkai ni Saku Hana?) plays. "Heart of Anxiety" (不安な心, Fuan na Kokoro?) plays in Midgar's Train Graveyard. When infiltrating the Shinra Building, "Infiltrating Shinra" (神羅ビル潜入, Shinra Biru Sennyū?) plays.



Other appearances [ edit | edit source ]

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One of the rooms from the Online Lobby is named Midgar.

Midgar is present as a room for preset characters of the game's Multiplayer Mode Online Lobby.

Midgar is one the six default stages in the initial arcade release.

The battlefield resembles a rectangular trapezium, being more open away from the Shinra building, but more smaller towards it. Various platforms of different elevation can be used on different sides of the stage.

Midway through battle, Meteorfall commences.

Midgar appears in the Field Music Sequence for "Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII", and as the Battle Music Sequence for "Let The Battles Begin!" and "Fight On".



Midgar returns in the FMS for "Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII" , and BMS for "Let The Battles Begin!", "Fight On", and "Encounter. The streets of Midgar appear in the FMS for "The Chase". Two other versions of Midgar appear in the BMS for the Advent Children versions of "J-E-N-O-V-A" and "One-Winged Angel", respectively.





This section about a location in Final Fantasy Airborne Brigade is empty or needs to be expanded. You can help the Final Fantasy Wiki by expanding it

Non-Final Fantasy guest appearances [ edit | edit source ]

Itadaki Street [ edit | edit source ]

Midgar is present as a map in Itadaki Street Special.

Midgar returns as a stage in Itadaki Street Portable

Midgar is sold as a downloadable stage for both the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS versions, coinciding with Cloud's release as a playable character. The stage consists of a large floating platform with three smaller platforms floating over it, making it similar in shape to another stage, Battlefield. Shinra Headquarters' tower shows prominently in the background.

Stage hazards consist of several summons from Final Fantasy VII coming in and attacking the stage. These hazards first appear as Materia bouncing around, which players can collect to use to attack other players. These summons include:

Odin: Cuts the stage into two separate parts with its sword.

Leviathan: Floods the arena, making the main platform surf across a huge body of water.

Ramuh: Electrifies the three floating platforms.

Ifrit: Attacks with fire magic, tilting the stage to the side.

Bahamut ZERO: Attacks with a devastating flare, which destroys the city in the background and creates a damaging pillar of light on the stage.

The alternate Ω Form stage removed the stage hazard summons and flattens the stage into a single large platform.

Midgar also returns in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and is available in the base game.

Rampage Land Rankers [ edit | edit source ]

Midgar appears as a "Legend Dungeon".[4]



Artwork

Concept art for Final Fantasy VII. Concept art. Midgar town square concept for Final Fantasy VII. Highway concept art for Final Fantasy VII. Plate concept art for Final Fantasy VII. Plate concept art for Final Fantasy VII. Midgar slums layout for Final Fantasy VII. Concept art. Concept art of Midgar 500 years later from Final Fantasy VII by Tetsuya Nomura. Artwork of Midgar's Sector 8 for Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-. Midgar artwork in Crisis Core. Midgar artwork in Crisis Core. Midgar artwork in Crisis Core. Midgar Bridge artwork in Crisis Core.

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Screenshots and backgrounds

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Models

Midgar's name derives from Midgard. Midgard is one of the nine plains, or worlds, in old Norse mythology. Midgard is considered cut-off from the other realms by a great sea and an endless desert, and was crafted from the slain body of Ymir, king of the jötunn (frost giants) whose body sustains the city's inhabitants. Midgard translates to "middle world" or "middle earth", reflecting its status as world that is both literal and figuratively in the middle of the eight realms. During the world-ending battle, Ragnarok, Midgard will be destroyed and a new world will emerge.

These parallels are present in Final Fantasy VII. Midgar being surrounded by a desert wasteland and the city is powered by Mako drained from the planet. The centrality of the mythological Midgard is reflected both in the Shinra Headquarters surrounded by the eight sectors, and Midgar serving as Shinra's base of power from which they monopolize the world's resources. In Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children where Edge is built out of Midgar's ruins after it is destroyed during Meteorfall, alluding to Midgard's destruction during Ragnarok.