Vincent Valentine
Encyclopedia : V : VI : VIN : Vincent Valentine
is one of two hidden characters in the PlayStation RPG Final Fantasy VII, the other being Yuffie Kisaragi. He has also appeared in the fighting game Ehrgeiz and is the main character in the Final Fantasy VII sequel, '. He also serves as a supporting character in the CGI follow-up to Final Fantasy VII, ', in which he is voiced by Shougo Suzuki in the Japanese version and Steve Blum in the English version.
Character design
Vincent appears as a tall, brooding man with long, unkept black hair wearing a ragged red cloak over black clothes. His left arm below the elbow is covered by a metal gauntlet terminating in formidable claws.¹ His cloak covers the lower half of his face and is held closed by a series of buckles. His eyes are distinctly coloured red. As of Advent Children, his weapon of choice changed to a triple-barrel gun named "Cerberus", reflected in the silver chain that hangs from the hilt of the gun, as it is shaped in the form of the mythological creature of the same name and the fact that the creature Cerberus has three heads as the gun has three barrels.Character designer Tetsuya Nomura has explained that Vincent Valentine's character shifted from that of Horror researcher, to detective, to chemist, finally arriving at the figure of a former member of the Shin-Ra Company's Turks with a tragic past, only part of which involves being used as a human test subject. It has been further explained that his crimson mantle was added to symbolize the idea of Vincent carrying a heavy weight — related to death — on his shoulders.
Biography
Vincent is the son of Grimoire Valentine, a Shin-Ra scientist. As an adult, Vincent became a member of the Shin-Ra Company's Turks, a group of highly skilled operatives who specialized in various activies such as espionage, kidnapping, assassinations and serving as bodyguards. When he was assigned to supervise a project spear-headed by his father, he fell in love with a scientist named "Lucrecia Crescent," an assistant to her father. However, despite his feelings for her, they parted ways when Grimoire died saving Lucrecia's life. Vincent would later meet her for a second time while assigned to supervise the Jenova Project in Nibelheim, where she was serving as an assistant to Professor Gast. There, Vincent tried expressing his feelings to her, but she rejected him out of guilt over Grimoire's death, ultimately entering a relationship with her associate Hojo instead. Lucrecia became pregnant afterwards, supplying a test subject for the Jenova Project's intentions to investigate the effect of Jenova cells on an unborn child.
Vincent objected to the use of humans—especially Lucrecia and her unborn child, whose parentage he was uncertain of—as live test subjects. Even so, in the interest of science, Lucrecia proceeded with the treatment and suffered various ill effects as a result. Outraged, Vincent confronted Hojo in the Shinra Mansion's underground laboratory and a heated argument ensued. Hojo ended this confrontation by pulling a gun from his lab coat and shooting Vincent down in cold blood. Vincent's body was placed in a large experimental capsule for use in Hojo's experiments based on Lucrecia's research of the Lifestream, originating from the time of her assistance to Grimoire. While Hojo's experimentation resulted in Vincent's anatomy being altered to where he could temporarily change his phyiscal form into monsterous enities (Galian Beast, Hellmasker, and Death Gigas), Lucrecia exposed Vincent's body to G Substance, a contaminated form of mako, and he became Chaos, an entity intended to pave the way for Omega WEAPON by killing all living things.
Under the influence of Chaos, Vincent became consumed in feral rage and broke out of his confinement. Lucrecia then used a materia that could control Chaos' power to calm Vincent and place him in a deep slumber. By the time Vincent reawakened on the operating table—with Hojo and Lucrecia nowhere in sight—he responded to his modified body with both anguish and rage. Later, during the time frame of the game, Vincent is discovered by Cloud's party in a locked room in the basement of the mansion. Here, he had been sleeping inside a coffin for more or less 30 years as a self-inflicted punishment for his inability to prevent the Jenova Project, which Vincent referred to as his "sin". Of course there is no information of what happened to Vincent the time after he awoke from the experiment and when he had put himself to sleep; which of course would explain how he had gotten his attire and how long exactly he had been in the ShinRa Mansion asleep.He then joins AVALANCHE in their quest to stop Sephiroth only because of the possibility of an encounter with Hojo.
Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII
In the chapter-based cell phone game Before Crisis, which is based six years up till the events of Final Fantasy VII with the Turks being the main characters, all the main characters in Final Fantasy VII have a very small cameo. To everyones surprise Vincent was not excluded from the list of characters. In a much later chapter Verdot, the head of the Turks until Tseng is given the position, is seen talking to Vincent in the Shin-Ra basement where he is found later by Cloud's group. It is realized that Verdot and Vincent worked together when Vincent was still a Turk.Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
For the next two years, after the Planet was saved, Vincent traveled the world alone. He rescued Cloud from an ill-fated battle with Kadaj, Loz & Yazoo in the forest outside the Forgotten Capital, and revealed to him that he rescued Tseng and Elena of the Turks after their torture at the hands of Kadaj's gang. He further reveals the nature of , a disease from which many suffer, and that he's learned that the Shin-Ra have discovered the remains of Jenova, which Kadaj and his gang are desperately seeking. He later participates in the battle against Bahamut SIN and, upon the airship Shera, reveals the truth about Kadaj to the members of AVALANCHE. The symbolism in Vincent's role in the movie could be on how he is, in a way, the extreme of Cloud's persona during most of the movie. As we know Vincent carries 'sins' that he can never let go, the 'sins' being unable to save the only person he cared for thus Vincent being unable to move on from his past. For Cloud, he experiences the same guilt and regret during the movie. Also for both characters after the events of Final Fantasy VII and during Advent Children, they have yet to find their place in the world and their stories are unfinished unlike the rest of the AVALANCHE group.Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII
takes place one year after Advent Children. Arriving at Kalm, Vincent becomes a target of the Deep Ground Soldiers, who need Vincent to fullfil their plan. The rest of the original surviving cast of Final Fantasy VII also appear, though their roles range from small supporting appearances (Cloud, Barret, Tifa and Red XIII) to larger roles (Yuffie, Cid and Reeve Tuesti).The game details Vincent's past and more on his anguish and sorrow. Vincent is able to transform in Dirge of Cerberus, as he did with his limit breaks from the original game, though only the Galian Beast and Chaos forms appear in the game (albeit noticeably modified).
Dirge of Cerberus: Lost Episode -Final Fantasy VII-
Lost Episode starts off three years after the fall of Meteor at the closing of Final Fantasy VIIs original storyline. Cellphone gamers will, like in Dirge of Cerberus, don the cloak of Vincent Valentine and fight for the world against the Deep Ground SOLDIERs. Lost Episode's Battlefield mode will allow gamers to explore a large world. The action shooter mode, however, will feature more predictable combat against the Deep Ground forces. Popular Final Fantasy VII mainstays like Limit Breaks and Materia will be available to Vincent in his new portable adventure.
The last feature of the game is Deep Ground Elite Mode, or DGE, which will pit gamers--playing as Deep Ground SOLDIERs--against one another in fierce battles.
Lost Episode will be available sometime this summer.[link]
Characteristics and abilities
Vincent, while not the most physically powerful character in Final Fantasy VII, is a skilled gunslinger and can cast magic well, making him an ideal distance fighter. His weapons include various firearms, each described in-game as "Long-Range Weapon".Due to Hojo's anatomic reconstruction of Vincent, he does not age² and possesses a number of supernatural abilities, including metamorphosis and the ability to fly. In Final Fantasy VII, Vincent transforms into four different creatures as part of his limit breaks: a bipedal version of a Final Fantasy VII Behemoth, the Galian Beast; the Frankenstein's monster-like Death Gigas; Hellmasker, a homage to Jason Voorhees; and the bat-like Chaos. After transforming, Vincent enters a berserk rage and performs extremely powerful attacks. In Advent Children, Vincent also assumes a previously unseen amorphous red form, evocative of his cloak. In Dirge of Cerberus, the Galian Beast was remodled into a more humanoid form, and Chaos was altered to resemble Vincent with demonic features, such as white skin, yellow eyes, spiked hair, monster fangs, and frayed bat-like wings. Although Vincent Valentine may have a strong array of long-ranged attacks, he still has some averagelly powerful short-ranged attacks, such as Inferno Kick, Flame Punch and Ifrit Uppercut. Also, he has special gun techniques such as ' Bullet Dance', 'Gun Blaze' and 'Death Blow'.
Other appearances
Ehrgeiz
Vincent is a playable character in the PlayStation version of Ehrgeiz along with Tifa, Cloud, Sephiroth, Yuffie and Zack, though — like the other Final Fantasy VII characters featured in the game — he has no storyline in the game. His alternate costume is his Turk uniform seen in flashbacks in the original game.Trivia
- The brooding, lovelorn Vincent is named after Vincent Price and Saint Valentine, the former being a horror film legend while the latter was a crusading martyr who has come to be associated with romance.
- Vincent's love, Lucrecia, is named after the historical figure Lucretia, who was raped by a Roman prince and subsequently committed suicide. Classical legend claims that it was her death which brought about the bloody Roman civil war that transformed Rome from a monarchy into a republic. The Lucrecia in Final Fantasy VII was also exploited to great and tragic effect by the Shin-Ra Corporation; incidentally, the second kanji in "Shin-Ra" is often used to represent Rome in Japanese.
- Due to the fact that Vincent and Yuffie Kisaragi are optional characters, they are not featured in any FMVs, including the ending sequence.
- The phone Vincent carries in Dirge of Cerberus is a reference to a couple of points of comedy relief in Advent Children, in which Cloud tells the phone-less Vincent that he'll give him a call, with Vincent later asking Tifa where he can find a phone shop. In the Reminiscence of Final Fantasy VII featurette, he speaks on the phone with Cloud, telling him to pass a message on to Yuffie, as it was his phone, "and she has no right to call it".
- Cloud's look in Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories was based off of Vincent's FF7 attire.
Footnotes
¹It has been previously suggested that this is an entirely mechanical prosthetic, but the refined character design used in Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus shows that there is an ordinary, albeit gloved, hand underneath the golden claws, presumably attached to a similarly ordinary arm. It is also interesting to note that brass claws are an ancient Greek chararacteristic typical to monsters (such as gorgons, with brass claws and wings), which would be in line with Vincent's monstrous associations.²Vincent's age, as provided in official materials, never changes: It remains fixed at 27, which is presumably how old he was when Hojo altered him. In contrast, the other main characters do age, which can be easily confirmed by comparing their ages in the game to those provided for Advent Children, which occurs two years after Final Fantasy VII. Further, Vincent's character designer, Tetsuya Nomura, has stated that Vincent was left immortal due to the experimentation conducted on him.[link]
Vincent has yet to make an appearance in the game Kingdom Hearts; both the claw and the cape that Cloud is wearing at the Olympus Coliseum belong to Vincent, as stated by Tetsuya Nomura.
It is suspected that Vincent was the original design for Cloud, to off-set Sephiroth's image.
References
External links
- on Final Fantasy Wiki at Wikicities
- [Vincent Valentine character profile] at the official Square Enix Final Fantasy VII site
- [Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Ω Translations FAQ] - Translations from the Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Ω
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Cloud - Barret - Tifa - Aerith - Red XIII - Cait Sith - Cid - Yuffie - Vincent - Sephiroth - Jenova - Rufus - Turks Character list - Location list - Term list AVALANCHE - Materia - Midgar - Shin-Ra - One-Winged Angel - - - - |
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