Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has Red XIII answer a question that I don't think many of us were asking in the first place - what does Cloud Strife smell like?
10.03.2024 - 16:01 / polygon.com / Red Xiii XIII (Xiii)
As many people have said on dating profiles (or mothers on their wall art), I love a video game that makes me laugh, and I am delighted Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has been so goddamn good at it.
In my time with the game, it has asked me to do absurd things like play a card game against a regular-ass dog. It has featured Cloud Strife, the badass protagonist with a giant sword, carrying a little cushion around for him to use on benches. It’s got dudes who play acoustic guitar at you like the Kens in Barbie, the franchise’s second homoerotic biker duel, and a lot of other things I want to talk about but would probably be spoilers. I mean, Chadley???
But if you’ll allow me the indulgence, I need to talk about one in particular.
Consider this a spoiler warning. I’m serious. I’m going to embed a photo of Cloud Strife playing the piano (also funny) to try and spare casual scrollers, but right underneath it, there will be a YouTube video of one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in video games, one that I recommend seeing for yourself if you’re interested in playing through Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. (You can’t miss it, it’s part of the story.)
Okay, ready?
Here it is:
There are a lot of incredible things about this scene, which takes place in Chapter 5 aboard the Shinra-8 cruise to Costa del Sol. First, like a lot of things in Rebirth, it’sa gag lifted directly from the original Final Fantasy 7, but it’s been given such a lavish reinterpretation that it becomes an entirely different kind of funny, a throwaway gag made into a comedic centerpiece for no reason at all.
As previously established in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, the characters are more than happy to break out into dance, but that still doesn’t prepare you for seeing Red XIII do a Michael Jackson impression, or the (smaller but funnier) sight gag of the canine warrior trying to cross his legs across the table from Cloud. (Also the kid crying at the sight of him kills me every time.)
I don’t think you get any of this in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth without Square Enix’s crucial development decision to never shy away from or soften the oddity of the original game’s polygonal abstraction. Under the older game’s art constraints, the unrealities of, say, riding a dolphin or meeting a talking cat are much easier to roll with, and not particularly unusual.
Recreating these moments with such a high degree of realism is in itself funny, an endearing commitment to a bit I can’t believe a massive studio signed up for. It’s also both a necessary counterbalance to an otherwise dire and melodramatic story — yes, the heroes of Rebirth must also fight for a world that has room for fun and levity — and a bit of a eulogy for this kind of goofballery in modern big-budget
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has Red XIII answer a question that I don't think many of us were asking in the first place - what does Cloud Strife smell like?
All the party members in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth can ride chocobos, and that includes Red XIII despite his leonine appearance. The pose he adopts on chocoback is pretty ridiculous, and nobody was more surprised than the game's animators that creative director Tetsuya Nomura gave it the stamp of approval.
Square Enix has released a four-party documentary series for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth titled “Inside Final Fantasy VII Rebirth,” which uncovers the stories behind the making of the RPG through the eyes of the development team.
Of all the new content introduced in , Queen's Blood is one of the most complex; learning this card game can be tricky, and building the best deck for it is even trickier. While the cards you pick should depend on your strategy, a few cards stand out as especially helpful when used correctly.
A new Final Fantasy VII Rebirth patch has gone live today, introducing graphics improvements and bug fixes. Unfortunately, the patch fails to address the game's most critical visual issues.
Square Enix has released Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth update v.1.020, introducing various improvements including performance options, graphics enhancements, frame rate adjustments, and more. Additionally, the update includes numerous bug fixes and functional enhancements aimed at refining the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth gameplay experience.
Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has garnered plenty of acclaim but also faced criticism for its visual quality, particularly in Performance Mode. While it received a patch before launch, a new update is live, offering even more improvements.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth contains a cheeky reference to a debug enemy that was accidentally left in the Japanese release of Final Fantasy 7 on the PS1.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth fans are confused about why most of the Loveless outfits from the Gold Saucer section of the game aren't available as unlockable outfits.
Shortly before launch, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi confused many fans of the series by explaining that the development team made two versions of each side quest all because of Red XIII. We didn't know why at the time, as we weren't aware of the voice change that Red XIII goes through a little ways into the game itself, first hinted at in Under Junon and then again in Costa del Sol.
The final boss of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a doozy. There’s a series of Chapter 14 bosses waiting for you at the end of the story, and they get increasingly difficult — it can take upwards of an hour or more to fight them all, and some phases of the boss can wipe your party in an instant. We’ve got video and a whole lot of text to help you beat the biggest bosses of the game. Here’s how to take on Jenova and the many, many forms of Sephiroth.
Chadly has a lot of tasks lined up for you in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Now that the world is far more open and explorable, you’ll have a ton of extra activities to take if you wish, but the first few are a bit more required. Aside from the usual tower climbing and item gathering, one task is to fight specific enemies with a series of requirements. The first one, which asks you to pressure a Thunderclaw, is more troublesome than it should be, even if you understand the system. Not to worry, because we’ve used the Assess skill to gather all the data on this foe to make pressuring it a breeze.