Just as Final Fantasy VII Rebirth saw the player party grow considerably from Final Fantasy VII Remake, Final Fantasy VII Revelation adds two new playable characters to the mix and we got to try both of them out. Cid Highwind, an ace pilot, and Vincent Valentine, an elite soldier experimented on by the mad scientist Hojo, both join the party early on in Revelation and each with their own distinct playstyles compared to the returning characters. With Cid, players can time their button inputs with the on-screen hits to optimize his techniques while Vincent can transform between different physical forms reflecting how he was changed by what Hojo did to him.
“We didn’t want Vincent or Cid to replace any of the other characters,” explains Hamaguchi. “We wanted them to feel separate but both special in a certain way. A good example with Cid is that, while Red XIII can fight exclusively on the ground, Cid fights really well in the air. For Vincent, he’s a very unique character. He can combat in close and long range, kind of like Cloud and Barrett. But in close range, he turns into Beast Mode. In Beast Mode, he becomes a little bit like a glass cannon, with his overall health reduced, so he can’t rely on that mode for too long.”
One of the coolest additions to Final Fantasy VII Revelation is the introduction of the FITS (Function Integrated Tactical Suitwear) system, changing up the characters’ outfits and combat roles within the wider party. The developers didn’t want to go with something as rigidly defined as the jobs system from past Final Fantasy games like Final Fantasy III, but something that added to further the customization options available to players on how they each prefer to play. Tying into the act of changing up character costumes adds a visual variety to the game that had been missing in its predecessors.
“It all stemmed from rather than having fixed roles for every single character, letting players customize them. They’re customizable into four different types, rather than just random jobs, using what was already there in the battle system,” shares Hamaguchi. “Originally, we did call it a job system internally. But we realized that if you call it a job system, it implies a lot of different things and we didn’t really want that. We came up with this concept of changing costumes. In Japanese, it’s called the wear system and, in English, it’s called the fit system to bridge the gap between the costumes and the customization.”
If you thought Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was a tremendous increase in scope and gameplay depth over Final Fantasy VII Remake, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Final Fantasy VII Revelation offers the most comprehensively sweeping Final Fantasy experience to date while offering an ambitious retelling of Final Fantasy VII’s final act and last stand against the villainous Sephiroth. While Naoki Hamaguchi has been working in this world and with its fan-favorite characters for years, he’s not finished with them yet, getting Revelation and its post-launch DLC ready to share with the world. That means the acclaimed game director hasn’t quite said goodbye to the characters just yet.
“Rather than feeling sad, there is a sense of reassurance once the game is out that we’ve done these characters proper,” Hamaguchi notes reflectively. “These characters are obviously very beloved, so we want to make sure that we’re doing them right and there’s a sense of reassurance that we did. At the moment, ‘sad’ is not the emotion that I would choose. But maybe later down the road, after it’s all said and done, I’ll want to pick it up and see these characters again.”
