Final Fantasy VII Remake Director Says Barret Was ‘Very Contemporary’ In The 1997 Original, Admits The Character Really Grew On Him For Remake Project

Naoki Hamaguchi, the director on Final Fantasy VII Remake, has revealed that Barret grew on him during the process of developing the trilogy, noting how the character was limited by technology during the original 1997 Final Fantasy VII on PlayStation.

Speaking with GamerBraves, Hamaguchi-san admitted that while “all the characters are special to me” he revealed “in terms of the remake series and introducing new facets of the characters,’ Barret was the one that stood out. He explained that, “In the original Final Fantasy 7, Barret was a product of the time,” noting he was “very contemporary” and “very cookie-cutter.”

Hamaguhi explained that “there were limits to what they could do with the character, limits to what they could show” due to the hardware of the time. However, with the remake series “the sort of justice he seeks and the things he wants to protect, they were able to visualise that, pack that into the story and deliver it to the consumer.”

Barret is the leader of the AVALANCHE group based in Midgar, and operates out of Tifa’s 7th Heaven bar in the Sector 7 slums. He has a long standing hatred for Shinra for destroying his home town, and is determined to stop the company from draining the Mako energy of the planet by destroying Shinra’s reactors. Barret excels in long-range attacks thanks to his gun-arm and is able to absorb a lot of damage.

Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 3 is currently in production at Square Enix, and Hamaguchi alongside Tetsuya Nomura recently stated that the team has managed to narrow down the name of the concluding chapter to just two options.

[Source – GamerBraves via GamesRadar]