Hump Day Husbandos: Vincent Valentine (Final Fantasy VII)

Oh my, is it already that time of the week again? It’s the time when we get to gush over all of our favourite husbandos and waifus! Today we’ll be talking about a character from Final Fantasy VII: the one, the only, Vincent Valentine.

If you’ve been following Final Fantasy VII Remake, I’m sure you remember the insane response to next-gen Tifa — while he’s yet to appear in the game, I firmly believe that Vincent will elicit a similar, if not even more powerful response from the fans when he does eventually show up.

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Who is Vincent Valentine?

First appearing in Final Fantasy VII, Vincent was an optional character that players could recruit into their party after completing a short side quest after arriving in Cloud and Tifa’s hometown of Nibelheim. In the town, there is an abandoned Shinra building, and should players wish to explore this building, they may come across a secret code that opens a passageway down to the basement. There are many pieces of information that add a good amount to the story down here — so much so that I hope they force players down here in Remake Part 2 or beyond — but one of the big ones is the first encounter with Vincent Valentine. 

A lot of people originally mistook the character for being a vampire, and I can’t say I blame them considering his entrance is him quite literally jumping out of a coffin. He is not a vampire, however, although due to some extremely unethical human experiment at the hands of the mad professor Hojo, Vincent is cursed with an immortal body. I’m sure you are already beginning to see why this absolute edgelord character is such a fan favourite. 

Unlike Yuffie, the other optional party member in the original Final Fantasy VII, Vincent’s motivations for joining the main party are quite clear and line up well with the motivations of many of the group already: he wants to stop Hojo and Sephiroth. Hojo is essentially the cause of everything, and this goes even more so in the case of Vincent Valentine should you learn about his past. 

Why we love Vincent Valentine

I love my edgy characters, especially when they actually turn out to be pretty good people who join the main cast of characters — it doesn’t really get much better than that as far as I’m concerned. The things that grab you immediately about Vincent are most definitely his looks and personality. Looks-wise, he most definitely has one of the most memorable aesthetics with the blood-red cloak that obscures the lower portion of his face, and his hilarious pointy golden boots. 

I think his personality is definitely an interesting one as well, with the way that he refers to his past as “sins” — he’s basically a big ol’ chuuni — but also the fact that he is an often misunderstood character. Vincent is a fairly secretive character as a result of his past traumas, and this can often come across as him being cold. This isn’t the case, however, as one of my favorite interactions between Cloud and Vincent properly portrays how he is. 

Cloud says that he believed Vincent didn’t really care about the planet, but Vincent explains that isn’t true and then proceeds to apologise for coming across as uncaring, but it’s just the way he is — the type who doesn’t really say much, but when he does, you know it’s important. Vincent is the image that comes to mind when I think cool. 

Why you’ll love Vincent Valentine

As I mentioned earlier, I think that if any character in Final Fantasy VII has a chance at outdoing Tifa Remake’s unveiling, it is Vincent Valentine. Let me list off some of the tropes that make up why Vincent is so popular: tragic backstory, loner, unrequited love interest, has a hidden monster lurking inside of him… wait, what? You heard me right, a monster. Thanks to the experimentation in Vincent’s past, he has the power of the Chaos materia quite literally living inside of him. 

I think that Vincent is going to be a character that delivers big in the coming parts of FFVII Remake. I think that as long as they keep faithful to his FFVII version and don’t go too Dirge of Cerberus on him — but maybe give him some more lines and some character growth — then I think we have the recipe for a beloved character becoming even more popular than he was before.

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