Final Fantasy 7 crossdressing scene took the most work in Remake development

Preparing the Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s crossdressing dance sequence was more trouble than first thought according to the game’s co-director who detailed the lengthy process.

The Final Fantasy 7 Remake took many years of development and underwent many changes from the original to modernize it for current-day audiences and newcomers alike.

Combat was given a big overhaul while the size and scope of the original title were expanded, leading to a three-part trilogy with Final Fantasy Rebirth up next.

Given how much has changed in terms of culture and societal norms, there were question marks over whether or not Cloud Strife’s crossdressing quest would be scrapped, instead, the game’s co-director has revealed how much the team embraced it to the extent it ate up a ton of development time.

Famous Final Fantasy 7 scene was given a bigger spotlight

Motomu Toriyama, one of the remake’s several co-directors, recently outlined in a Square Enix post how much effort the team actually put into the Honeybee Inn part of the game, specifically, the dance routine.

“We had decided to change the original FFVII’s Honeybee Inn episode from a gender free perspective right from the start of development. We remade the whole scene as a song and dance show, in order to make it the big stage for Cloud’s cross-dressing event and to give it a “maximum showbusiness” vibe as part of the Remake story,” Toriyama said.

In the original game, Cloud needs to acquire women’s clothes and infiltrate Don Corneo’s mansion, but the FF7 Remake goes one step farther and makes a literal song and dance about the scenario.

Toriyama also added: “We collected together references of dance shows and decided on an overall direction, then tentatively edited that footage together while adding music and lyrics, before going even further and setting down the choreography. I think that just that preparatory phase here took up the longest period in the whole development.”

The game’s cutscene director Hidekazu Miyake also said: “We put together a concept video based on cabaret show reviews and then had the choreography worked up based on that reference and the music.”

No time or expense was spared for the sequence, clearly, and it shows as the section of gameplay was widely praised and celebrated.

Square Enix definitely added new touches and changed things up with the Part 1 remake, so all eyes are on Final Fantasy Rebirth, as well as Part 3, and maybe Crisis Core too.