This Final Fantasy 10 Easter egg is a reference to the JRPG the 2001 installment never became, and it's so obscure that even Square Enix forgot to include it in its remaster

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Seventeen Angelic Impact x Devil's Shock never came to be

Final Fantasy 10 HD Remaster
(Image credit: Square Enix)

A mind-boggling 24 years ago, what came to be one of the best Final Fantasy games to date released with Final Fantasy 10 – but its 2013 HD remaster wasn't entirely faithful to the OG, particularly when it came to one very obscure Easter egg.

Shesez, host of web series Boundary Break, points out as much in a recent clip online. Square had included an out-of-bounds Easter egg in Final Fantasy 10 that was largely inaccessible due to the game's fixed camera angles – a framed picture within a room most would never see the interior of. As Shesez highlights, this photo, "although super duper blurry," contains some concept promotional art for the "beta" that became Final Fantasy 10.

Dubbed Seventeen Angelic Impact x Devil's Shock, this beta was actually the original game that Square had pitched. Although some of its characters mirror those found in Final Fantasy 10, Seventeen boasted its own distinct storyline, centering around a disease that would kill people off once they'd turn 16 – almost in a Clair Obscur: Expedition 33-esque way. The hero would search for the cure alongside a healer-type character resembling Yuna.

One of the initially proposed game's twists was, according to Automaton, the fact that the healer's efforts to help were contributing to the illness. It seems that the protagonist pictured in the Final Fantasy 10 Easter egg eventually became Tidus, albeit mixed with the character in the JRPG's beta footage, which was shown at the 2000 Square Millennium Event in Japan. Obscure, right? So obscure, in fact, Square forgot about it altogether.

Final Fantasy X Used to Look Like THIS?! | FFX Beta Trailer - YouTube Final Fantasy X Used to Look Like THIS?! | FFX Beta Trailer - YouTube
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As Shesez points out, the Final Fantasy 10/10-2 HD remaster sees the Seventeen art changed to two men wielding weapons. To be fair, the original image is pretty difficult to make out – but there's something amusing about the studio forgetting about its own Easter egg itself and trying to make out what past developers might've been trying to depict in the low-resolution photo. It really makes you wonder, how many more lost secrets could there be?

Why not look through our roundup of the best JRPGs around for something new to play next?

Anna Koselke
Anna Koselke
Staff Writer

After spending years with her head in various fantastical realms' clouds, Anna studied English Literature and then Medieval History at the University of Edinburgh, going on to specialize in narrative design and video game journalism as a writer. She has written for various publications since her postgraduate studies, including Dexerto, Fanbyte, GameSpot, IGN, PCGamesN, and more. When she's not frantically trying to form words into coherent sentences, she's probably daydreaming about becoming a fairy druid and befriending every animal or she's spending a thousand (more) hours traversing the Underdark in Baldur's Gate 3. If you spot her away from her PC, you'll always find Anna with a fantasy book, a handheld video game console of some sort, and a Tamagotchi or two on hand.

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