The Co-Director of Final Fantasy VII Remake has explained why Barret had a playable section in the game and why it was placed in a specific spot in the story. In the original FF7, the player controlled Cloud for most of the game, though Tifa and Cid did have stints as the party leader at different points.
FF7 Remake made an effort to ensure all characters had playable sections. The exception to this was Red XIII not being playable in FF7 Remake at all, due to how late he was introduced to the story of the game. Cloud is the main character throughout most of FF7 Remake, but Tifa, Aerith, and Barret all have sections where they are the main character. Yuffie also takes center stage in the INTERmission DLC in FF7 Remake Intergrade, which doesn’t include any of the other playable characters in the game.
What’s unusual about Barret’s main playable section that it involves a totally new element in the story. In the original FF7, when the Sector 7 Plate drops, the party immediately heads to Aerith’s mother’s house for some exposition, before breaking into Shinra Headquarters. FF7 Remake adds a new story dungeon at this point in the game, with Barret falling into a Shinra Underground Test Site where he faces makonoids in battle. The reason this section of the story was included in FF7 Remake has been explained by Co-Director Naoki Hamaguchi in a blog on the Square Enix website.
Barret’s Playable FF7 Remake Section Ties Into Later Events
According to Hamaguchi, it was decided early on that all characters would have a playable section, but Barret’s was placed at this point in the story for a specific reason. This was at the point when the Sector 7 Plate had just fallen and the fate of both Avalanche and Barret’s daughter, Marlene, was still in question. The idea was to explore Barret’s character during this tumultuous time, which would further cement his decision to leave Marlene with Aerith’s mother later on, as this was a decision made quickly in the original game. FF7 Remake‘s story is unchanged from FF7 in this regard, but the method for getting to this point is different.
The Compilation of Final Fantasy 7 greatly expanded the world of the original game, which is something that FF7 Remake took advantage of, by including references to Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core, and Before Crisis in the story. The idea of there being an underground laboratory in Midgar makes sense, considering the kind of shady activities that the Shinra Corporation got up to, especially with organizations like Deepground that exist within Shinra, and it would explain why there are monsters in parts of the city, as creatures like FF7 Remake‘s Hell House boss could be the result of experiments gone wrong. The real reason for its inclusion was to give Barret a moment in the spotlight before the group heads to the Shinra Headquarters, which acts as the final dungeon in Final Fantasy VII Remake.
