Today at New York Comic Con, it was revealed that voice actor Matt Mercer, perhaps best known as the Dungeon Master of popular actual-play webseries Critical Role, will be starring as gunslinger Vincent Valentine in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the second chapter in Square Enix’s ongoing remake of the classic ‘90s Japanese role playing game.
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Previous trailers for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth have showed off a variety of different locales, as well as characters not featured in the first chapter, 2020’s Final Fantasy VII Remake, including Vincent Valentine. Much of the game remains shrouded in mystery, however, as the remake project isn’t just a faithful retelling of the original story, but sees its narrative branching off in some bold new directions. Today at NYCC, a panel featuring voice actors from the highly anticipated sequel revealed a bit more about what to expect.
While Matt Mercer did voice a few characters in the first entry of the remake project, they were mostly minor NPCs with names like “Wall Market Thug.” During the October 14 panel, Mercer revealed that he auditioned for Valentine in Rebirth, saying that he “put all of his energy” into the audition. Then, he didn’t hear back for nine months. And when he finally did get a callback, it only said that he’d once again play nameless NPCs.
In what he described as a prank played on him by the folks producing the game, Mercer said he was brought into the booth to record lines for a random NPC when the screen containing the script started glitching out before fading to black and presenting him with another character: that of Vincent Valentine. Quite a way to find out you’ve got the job.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth releases on February 29, 2024 for PlayStation 5.
As Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s February 29 release date grows ever closer folks are getting antsy about seeing beloved characters like Cait Sith (pronounced “Kate Sihth,” apparently) Vincent Valentine, and Cid party up with Cloud. Although creative director Tetsuya Nomura has already confirmed that the aforementioned characters will join Cloud in combat similarly to how Red XIII did in Final Fantasy VII Remake, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be introduced in the same order as in the original game. We don’t even know where Rebirth will end given the remake trilogy’s altered timeline. But one fan believes their wild theory pinpoints where Rebirth will end, and it involves FFVII’s cigarette-smoking scientist, Cid.
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In 1997’s Final Fantasy VII, Cid joins the crew long before they make their way to the City of Ancients, a place we’ve seen the Rebirth cast explore in the latest trailer. But for whatever reason the Rebirth trailers still haven’t shown off Cid, despite revealing other, arguably bigger, characters like the vampire-coded Vincent Valentine. And this Reddit user believes they know why.
Yesterday, nikokow59 shared a screenshot from the Final Fantasy VII Trivia Twitter account to the FFVIIRemake subreddit about a scrapped story beat of the classic game that would have prevented Cid from joining Cloud and crew until an even later point in the game. According to the FF7_Trivia tweet, Cid wouldn’t have joined the party until after Sephiroth summoned Meteor. Talk about cutting things close to the buzzer beater. Another tidbit of this scrapped concept involved Shinra sending Cid out on a suicide mission to offset the celestial body with a rocket of his own making, as if he was in some video game version of the 1998 Bruce Willis film, Armageddon.
“In the OG [Cid] didn’t really need to follow the party, so this time that could be a good reason,” Nikokow59 wrote.
Nikokow59’s theory would also suggest that Cid’s famous rocket experiment, which originally took place before the events of FFVII, would instead be a part of Rebirth’s story and serve as the game’s cliffhanger. That would make a lot of sense considering there’s still an entire third game to come to complete the Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy. Do you think Nikokow59’s theory holds water, or will Square Enix end Rebirth on a different note?
Either way, we’ll have to wait a while to find out, as Final Fantasy VII Rebirth doesn’t launch until February 29 on PlayStation 5.
Friends, the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth hype train has left Midgar station and is barreling toward us at a fever pitch in the run-up to the RPG’s PlayStation 5 release date of February 29, 2024. Y’all see that new trailer? If you haven’t, you’ve probably at least heard fans squealing about the first look at Vincent Valentine, Zack not being dead like he’s supposed to be, and several other cool moments. All that’s well and good, but there’s one moment in the trailer we are not talking about enough. And we should be, because the best character in all of Final Fantasy VII is coming back in Rebirth: Andrea Rhodea, the king of the Honeybee Inn.
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Andrea is one of the best additions in Final Fantasy VII Remake’s new spin on an old story. He’s the owner and lead dancer of the Honeybee Inn, which was a brothel in the original 1997 Final Fantasy VII. In Remake the Honeybee Inn is a lavish nightclub, complete with extravagant dance routines, stunning costumes based on the titular bug, and a hunky pansexual king running the place.
The changes worked on a few fronts. It made the Honeybee Inn a more memorable touchstone of Cloud and Aerith’s time in the Wall Market rather than a weird, uncomfortable detour tinged with gay panic. Now it’s a celebratory moment about the freedom of expression and breaking down gender norms. The updated scene let Cloud dress in drag without shame and felt like a real queer space in a game that was otherwise willing to assume Cloud was involved with a woman as long as they were in each other’s proximity. Sure, Cloud and Aerith are just passing through, but it was a meaningful moment for Final Fantasy VII’s larger world to show that queer people and places exist.
Even as a person who doesn’t love Final Fantasy VII Remake for a lot of reasons we won’t get into—don’t get me started on my lack of faith in Square to pull off an Evangelion-style meta-commentary after nearly every extended universe it’s done in Final Fantasy has undermined the source material in some way—the Honeybee Inn scene remains an all-time great moment for me in the series. It’s joyful to watch unfold, and Andrea is one of the most captivating characters for as little screentime as he gets.
Given that he’s a side character and pretty tied to a specific location the party is departing at the end of Final Fantasy VII Remake, I didn’t think we’d see Andrea again in Rebirth, or the third game that will wrap up this revamped story. But it looks like we’re heading to the Gold Saucer in Rebirth, and Andrea is about to dance his ass off once again.
And look at this king fucking go. He was a charismatic dancer in Remake, even when saddled with a newbie dance partner like Cloud. Whenever I heard a catchy pop song back in 2020 (say, anything from Lady Gaga’s “Chromatica”) images of Andrea and Cloud dancing immediately entered my mind, like an old screensaver or music video. So I’m sure the new choreography he and his crew are working on in Rebirth will stamp itself onto any pop album I listen to in 2024.
Square Enix
I really loved Dion and his gay relationship in Final Fantasy XVI, but because of a few disappointing decisions Square Enix made with the character, I still left that game a bit saddened by its apparent hesitance to showcase his love story with the same confidence as it did his straight counterparts’. Fresh off Remake’s Andrea, an incredibly proud queer man in the Final Fantasy universe, Dion’s treatment felt like two steps forward and one step back. I don’t expect Andrea will play a huge role in Rebirth, but I’m very glad to see he’s back, killing it on the stage, and looking fine as hell in white.
