Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Director Explains Why Red XIII Rides A Chocobo

thegamer.com:

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's director, Naoki Hamaguchi, has commented on why Red XIII rides on top of Chocobos and explained that it was actually Tetsuya Nomura's idea.

Considering how dark we know Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is going to be (especially when that scene inevitably shows up), it's surprising to see how many memes have come from it already. Not only have fans made jokes about Cloud riding a segway, but they've also been tickled by the bizarre sight of Red XIII sitting upright while riding a Chocobo, despite the fact that he could probably just run alongside the rest of the party.

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Red XIII's strange posture while riding a Chocobo has been memed to death since it was first shown off, and it seems that the developers of Rebirth are well aware of the positive response from fans. In fact, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's director, Naoki Hamaguchi, has even commented on the strange situation during a recent interview with Prima Games, where he talked about how "hyped" the team was to put Red XIII on a Chocobo, and explained that the idea actually came from Tetsuya Nomura.

Hamaguchi said, "There is a funny dev story behind that that I wanted to share. So, initially, Red XIII, seeing that he was kind of like an animal-like, creature, we were thinking, okay, should we have him just sort of walk along? Like, should he be the only one that’s not riding as others do and just walking along? Or is he going to be, like, riding with the character? And we kind of tried out different variations of these and then brought these ideas to Nomura-san. And Nomura-san said it’s fine to have him ride."

Hamaguchi then went on to say that the team was "very hyped" about being able to include Red