Character

The main playable characters in Final Fantasy VII are Cloud Strife, Barret Wallace, Tifa Lockhart, Aerith Gainsborough, Red XIII, Cait Sith, Cid Highwind, and two secret characters: Vincent Valentine and Yuffie Kisaragi. Sephiroth joins the party during a single sequence, but he cannot be controlled, nor his equipment changed. However, his status, inventory and equipment, can be checked during Cloud's flashback.

Important characters in Shinra are Reeve Tuesti (Head of Urban Development), Professor Hojo (Head of the Science Department), Palmer (Head of Space Exploration), Heidegger (Head of the Peace Preservation Department), Scarlet (Head of Weapons Research and Development), President Shinra, his son Rufus Shinra, and the members of a secret police organization called the Turks; Elena, Rude, Reno, and Tseng.

It should be noted that Aerith's name in the original English language release of Final Fantasy VII was incorrectly translated as Aeris. Later products that included her as a character, such as Kingdom Hearts, Crisis Core, and the movie Advent Children included the correct translation.

[edit] Subsequent appearances

Final Fantasy VII proved to be so popular that several characters from the game have appeared in other Square games. Cloud, Tifa, Sephiroth, Vincent, Yuffie and Zack are playable characters in the fighting game Ehrgeiz: God Bless the Ring. Tifa appears on a poster in Solaris in the role-playing game Xenogears. Cloud appears as a secret playable character in Chocobo Racing and in Final Fantasy Tactics, where an alternate Aerith makes a cameo as well. Cloud, Aerith, Yuffie, Cid, and Sephiroth appear in Kingdom Hearts, in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories with the exception of Sephiroth, and they all appear in Kingdom Hearts II with the addition of Tifa. Cloud, Tifa, Aerith and Sephiroth appear in the game Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy in Itadaki Street Special, and again in Itadaki Street Portable with the addition of Yuffie. All playable characters reappear in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, and most appear at various times in other Compilation of Final Fantasy VII titles. Cloud and Aerith, who both appear in the game's cinematic introduction, were featured in a remake of this cinematic in a technical demonstration for the PlayStation 3 in 2005. Several Final Fantasy VII characters are slated to appear in Sackboy form in an expansion pack of the PS3 game, LittleBigPlanet, though only Sephiroth has been unveiled.

From : http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Final_fantasy_7