For Square Enix to present Yuffie Kisaragi at the Final Fantasy VII Remake: Intergrade with a separate story is great, especially as it sets a precedent for how subsequent entries in the series can solve the biggest problem in the first game.
Cloud, Barret, Tifa and Aerith receive almost all the spotlight in FF7, and the remaining four cast members do not have their backstory developed until later in the game (or in a striking case, an entirely separate game). If FF7 Remake has shown us something, is that this new narrative is infinitely more interesting the deeper it delves into the tradition of the original, and even more when it deviates from it to experiment.
We need standalone episodes dedicated to each central cast member to give each of them the spotlight they need. Intergrade is about to set that precedent in style, but Square must go even deeper by exploring flashbacks that were never playable in the original or entirely new stories.
Final Fantasy VII Remake it is an excellent game with few failures, but one of the most striking is how it failed Red-XIII. The talking lion-lion is introduced in the final act of the game as an NPC who fights alongside the group and engages in some cat-like platform maneuvers, but we learn nothing about him other than his desire to bite the evil scientist crazy Hojo.
In comparison, learn a lot about Cloud, Barret, Tifa and Aerith throughout the adventure: what motivates them, the general direction of their moral compass, their relationships and small details of personal history. We don’t have that with Red-XIII. He’s just a talking animal. This is obviously because the story of the original game has been fragmented. We didn’t go to Cosmo Canyon to visit Bugenhagen, so we don’t know anything about Nanaki (that’s the real name for Red-XIII!) Yet.
FF7 Remake: Intergrade, however, is taking an innovative approach to character development with an entirely new episode featuring Yuffie “as she infiltrates the shadowy Shinra Corporation to steal a powerful Materia and restore the glory of her homeland”. It is a much more interesting way of introducing the character compared to the original, where she was an irritating stranger you met in the forest and who later stole ALL of your material in one of the most frustrating sequences in the game. Square Enix should do this for all characters, even if it means getting several DLCs based on shorter stories in the years to come before Part 2.
As far as we know, Square Enix could already be planning to highlight each remaining member of the main cast like this: introducing them in derived chapters that overlap the main story.
As much as I despise the Cait Sith stranger FF7 Remake cameo during the destruction of the Sector 7 cutscene, some chapters exploring how the animatronic cat travels from Midgar to the Golden Disc interests me. Doubly, dealing with Reeve Tuesti’s growing concerns about Shinra’s lack of morality.
Even more interesting, however, is the potential for playable flashbacks starring Vincent Valentine and Cid Highwind, especially when their background stories are developed in flashbacks within the original game or in spinoffs like Dirge of Cerberus and Before the crisis.
Imagine the following: some chapters starring Cid six years before the main game (as described in Before the crisis) when he is working for Shinra to build a space rocket. But because of the Avalanche’s interference, his life’s dream was put on hold. This would explain why he is so hostile these days and help to contextualize who this grumpy old man is before bringing his spear to fight alongside Cloud and friends.
Likewise, Vincent is just a strange vampire the group meets in the basement of Shinra’s Nibelheim mansion, and it is only much later that his backstory as a Turk that Hojo experienced is exposed. And if we get one Intergradein a flashback size of three decades before it details Vincent’s transformation? So, when the group meets him during the events of the main game, we already know why he is so taciturn.
Granted, all of these events will be covered in the Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis mobile game, but there are reasons to believe that Square Enix can develop mini-adventures for each character.
At the Final Fantasy VII Remake Ultimania, released a few weeks later FF7 Remake, Game Director Tetsuya Nomura spoke somewhat vaguely about the number of “parties” in the Redo Series. “If we divide the story into large parts, it will take longer to be done”, Nomura said, according to a translation. “If we divide it into smaller, more detailed sections, development will be faster.”
In retrospect, Nomura may have thought of Yuffie Intergrade adventure when he talked about “detailed smaller sections”, which could mean that the long-term plan for FF7 Remake is to incorporate smaller parts of the story going forward. At the very least, it would keep things very interesting and fun, because FF7 Remake series unfolds over the next few years.
FF7 Remake: Intergrade will be released on June 10, 2021 for the PS5.