In the English and North American game manuals for Final Fantasy VII on PlayStation, major rival Sephiroth has a resume.
Included in that resume, his birthplace and most of his important details were completely omitted. All that remained was his height and the fact that he fought with a sword. In the Japanese manual, even his height is marked with "?".
The Final Fantasy 7 remake is only part of the original story-the first few hours of the PS1 JRPG disc took place entirely in Midgar. During this time, you have never really encountered Sephiroth-he is a ghost wearing a black cloak.
He was called the legend and a hero of war, but only the pictures he made in his mind. At the end of Midgar, you and your team are locked in a prison in the Shinra building-a hub for evil companies to draw energy from Earth.
During your imprisonment, when you woke up, you discovered that the cell door had been opened, and a line of blood and corpses meandered through the building. Sephiroth has been here. He rescued his mother, a small part of an alien entity called Jenova-this headless and abominable behavior spreads around the building, killing everyone found. But for some reason, it allows you and your team to escape.
This is a truly disturbing moment, and I can't wait to see the replica in the remake, but I worry that the lack of mystery may offset some of the impact. With so many scenes left to your imagination, it's creepier than any Unreal Engine-driven cutscenes. You don't even know what Sephiroth or Jenova look like-you only know what they do.
The Final Fantasy series is usually bloodless, but the violence here has hurt every surface. This was a really depressing bleak moment in an otherwise lovely world.
We already have a handful of Final Fantasy 7 Remake trailers, and we also see a glimpse of Sephiroth, in which silver-haired little braids never appeared in the original game. These may be flashbacks or visions that haunt the protagonist Cloud, but I worry that they might cost Sephiroth what makes him so iconic.
For a moment, when you first left Midgar, you were forced to buy chocobo (a huge rideable chicken), so you could cross a swampland that was patrolled by a giant snake named Midgar Zolom. If you try to fight a snake, you are likely to die.
The chocobo breeder tells you that there is another person walking through the swamp-a man in a black cape. When you finally pass it through, you will find another Midgar Zolom's body pierced on the bark. Th is implies that Sephiroth just picked up the bad boy and slammed it hard, piercing the trunk. One thing that can kill you and your party is nothing to the man in that black cape. His way.
Can Square Enix successfully turn this mystery into a Final Fantasy 7 remake? Is it even possible to surprise people by recreating games that are over 20 years old in the same way? I'm not sure what the answer is, but the remake may bring a whole new generation to the entire story and characters, and these stories and characters have already meant a lot to many people, and I hope that developers can decorate this particular aspect and make Sephiroth Become an iconic villain.
At the same time, that's why many people voted in favor of Final Fantasy XIV's Emmet Selch over Sephiroth in the official "Best Villain" polls.
