Tetsuya Nomura Says Sephiroth Is A "Protagonist" Of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

04.11.2023 - 09:35 / thegamer.com / Tetsuya Nomura

Tetsuya Nomura has revealed that Sephiroth can be considered a "protagonist" of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, which has caused some players to think that his redemption might be part of the game's story.

One of the biggest (and most appreciated) changes that Final Fantasy 7 Remake made to the original game is how it handled Sephiroth. Although Sephiroth barely appeared in the opening Midgar section of the original game, he's all over in Remake and set up to be an even bigger and more involved deal in the rest of the trilogy than he was when Final Fantasy 7 first launched.

In the original game, Cloud and the Midgar gang don't face Sephiroth properly until the very end of the game. Comparatively, we're not even into the second third of the Remake trilogy and we've already fought him.

We've already seen a ton of evidence that suggests that this is also going to be the case for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, with Sephiroth appearing alongside Cloud in its debut trailer and gameplay footage showing him as a playable character for the first time in the series. In fact, the treatment of Sephiroth almost shows him as being more heroic in what we've seen of Rebirth so far, something that creative director Tetsuya Nomura might have confirmed is purposeful.

As pointed out by Twitter user aitaikimochi and originally reported by Shacknews closer to Rebirth's initial announcement, Tetsuya Nomura took part in an interview with the site and talked about the inclusion of Sephiroth in the game. After Shacknews pointed out that Sephiroth is playable for the first time in Rebirth, Nomura points out his role in the story and how he makes much more of an appearance than in the original game, before going on to say that Sephiroth is a "protagonist" of Rebirth alongside Cloud.

Nomura said, "As far as Sephiroth being this extremely popular character, frankly, I'm very curious as to what makes him so attractive to users, because I hear this opinion very often. His appearance, firstly, I'm sure, but also perhaps there is something about his background that brings about a particular appeal to so many of the players that makes him this iconic character. And so, for Rebirth, I would think that besides Cloud, Sephiroth is also a protagonist that we can think of for this title."

Although some fans have shown concern that this is setting Sephiroth up to be a more heroic character this time around alongside Cloud and Zack, it's worth noting that protagonist doesn't necessarily mean "hero", and more indicates how important Sephiroth is going to be to the story in Rebirth. Still, it's confirmation that we can expect to see a lot of the silver-haired... saviour?

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