Zack Fair

Who is Zack?

Zack Fair grew up in Gongaga, a jungle village in the shadow of a Shinra reactor, and left home as a teenager to become a hero. He found his way into SOLDIER, Shinra's elite fighting force, and stayed the same loud, restless, hopelessly optimistic kid the whole way through.

In the original Final Fantasy VII he is barely there: a face in somebody else's memory, a name that makes a few characters go quiet. It took ten years and a whole game, Crisis Core, to tell his side properly. I keep coming back to that story, so I made this page.

Spoilers ahead. This page talks openly about how Crisis Core ends and about the big reveal in Final Fantasy VII.

His story, in short

• Leaving Gongaga

  He heads for Midgar with no plan beyond "join SOLDIER, become a hero," and somehow makes it work.

• A puppy in SOLDIER

  As a 2nd Class he trains under Angeal Hewley, who keeps telling him that dreams and honor count for more than rank. Angeal calls him a puppy. It isn't entirely unfair.

• Wutai, and the deserters

  During the war with Wutai, Genesis Rhapsodos walks out of SOLDIER and takes a lot of people with him. Then Angeal disappears too. Zack is sent to find out why, and learns more about how SOLDIER is made than he ever wanted to.

• The church in Sector 5

  He falls through a church roof in the slums and lands in a flowerbed next to Aerith. They start seeing each other. He helps her build a wagon so she can sell flowers all over Midgar.

• First Class

  He makes 1st Class, and in the end has to face Angeal himself. What Angeal leaves him is the huge sword he never liked to swing.

• Nibelheim

  A routine reactor job with Sephiroth and a quiet infantryman named Cloud Strife goes as badly as anything can. Sephiroth learns where he comes from, loses his mind and burns the town. Zack goes after him and loses. Cloud is the one who ends it.

• Four years in a basement

  Shinra buries the incident. Professor Hojo keeps Zack and Cloud in the basement of the Shinra Mansion as test subjects for about four years.

• The road to Midgar

  Zack breaks out and carries a half-conscious Cloud across the wasteland toward Midgar and toward Aerith. On a cliff within sight of the city, Shinra's army catches up with them. He fights alone, and before he dies he gives Cloud the sword and asks him to live for the both of them.

• What comes after

  Cloud walks into Midgar carrying pieces of Zack's life as if they were his own. That's where Final Fantasy VII starts.

People in his life

Lines we remember

“Embrace your dreams.”

“You’ll be… my living legacy.”

Where to find him

Little things

• When he's bored or nervous he does squats. Crisis Core turns this into a minigame.
• The sword goes from Angeal to Zack to Cloud, and none of them picked it for the way it looks.
• The reels spinning in the corner of the screen in Crisis Core are his memories. They decide which limit break he gets.
• Japanese voice: Kenichi Suzumura. English: Rick Gomez in Advent Children and Crisis Core, Caleb Pierce from Remake on.