Final Fantasy VII Remake released back in April, and now that players have had time to immerse themselves in the new iteration of Midgar, one of the game’s developers has opened up about some elements of the world and the processes behind developing it. Motomu Toriyama, the game’s co-director and scenario designer, has answered some questions for the official Final Fantasy site, and they’ve revealed some interesting details–including a strange insight into an internal nickname for one character.
Toriyama talks about the game’s soundtrack, why there are cats everywhere in Midgar (it’s because of Wedge, apparently), and touches on a few details about the design of the game world. It’s mostly pretty trivial, and occasionally speculative, but when asked about the fact that Cloud’s mother and Tifa’s father were given names for this entry, he lets an odd detail slip.
“They both had names in the original FFVII character design documents, so we decided to use them in Remake,” Toriyama says.
Now Cloud’s mother is officially named Claudia and Tifa’s father is Brian. Tifa’s dad, however, has no dialogue in Remake, so during development we referred to him as ‘dead body.'”
True, we only ever see Brian in flashbacks, and he’s dead. But still, wow.
Toriyama also talks about some of the characters who were imported from the novel Final Fantasy VII: The Kids Are Alright: A Turks Side Story into the Remake, including Mireille, Kyrie, and Leslie. “From the very beginning of development, we wanted Remake to feature characters from the larger FFVII universe–characters who weren’t a part of the original,” he says. “So, we came up with pasts for these characters that would fit with their stories in the novel.” He also says that the “lovey-dovey couple” at the Sector 7 slums train station are his favorite NPCs.
Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 2 is now in full development, so hopefully there will be less of a wait than there was for the first part.
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