Final Fantasy VII Remake Red XIII Playable Combat

Red XIII, the highly intelligent dog-cat from Final Fantasy VII, will not be a playable character in the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Remake. Despite being seen on the battlefield in a previous trailer, you won't be able to take direct control of Red during combat -- he's apparently just a guest character who'll help you out during certain fights. We assume that he'll get his chance to shine in future instalments.

It's a bit of a shame given that Final Fantasy VII Remake -- the first game, at least -- is all about fleshing out the Midgar story arc as much as possible. In the original release, Red XIII joins the party just as they're about to escape the city, but it's still a bit of a bummer that things haven't been slightly rejigged so that he's included a little more.

"We felt the point at which Red XIII joins the party in the story is very late on so we thought okay, if we’re gonna have him as a full character and try and get the player to enjoy his character development arc and growth as a character through that, it’s not really enough time to do that," co-director Naoki Hamaguchi told VG247.

Hamaguchi continues: "We thought that the best way to have him involved was as a guest character. Normally throughout the game you’ll be playing as a three-man party, but you will have him as a guest character that fights alongside you during the the last part of the story. He’ll be using all of his old really nostalgic moves, and you’ll see that. We felt that was the best way of showing him off as a character and who he is. That’s why we felt that was the best way to include him."

So that means Final Fantasy VII Remake will have a total of four characters that you can switch between: Cloud, Barrett, Tifa, and Aerith. And based on what we've seen of the title so far, each party member has a decent amount of depth to their fighting style, topped off with a lot of opportunities to customise their abilities through materia and skill trees.

Still, are you disappointed that Red XIII won't be playable? Feel free to growl in the comments section below.

[source vg247.com]