Final Fantasy and Smash Bros. fans were surprised over three years ago when Nintendo announced that Final Fantasy VII villain Sephiroth was joining the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster. It was such a surprise that not even the team remaking Final Fantasy VII knew it was happening.
In an interview with Kinda Funny, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi revealed that he nor anyone else working on Rebirth knew that Sephiroth would be joining the fray in Nintendo's widely popular fighting game series.
"So, actually, um, with sort of Sephiroth in Smash Brothers, it was actually extremely confidential that he was even going to be in it," Hamaguchi explained. "So, none of the dev team knew, including myself. So it was more like when the whole world knew it, and that's when we knew it like, 'Oh! I had no idea!'"
Hamaguchi's answer was a response to a question regarding whether or not the development team had any feedback or if there were any takeaways from playing as Sephiroth in Smash Bros. Ultimate. While we have a few more days until Rebirth is out, we learned from a recent preview that Sephiroth will be a fully playable character.
In our review of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which scored a 9/10 on our review scale, we wrote: "Final Fantasy VII Rebirth impressively builds off of what Remake set in motion, both as a best-in-class action-RPG full of exciting challenges and an awe-inspiring recreation of a world that has meant so much to so many for so long."
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is out on February 29, exclusively for the PlayStation 5. For more on Rebirth, check out our performance review to see how it runs on Sony's ninth-generation gaming console.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
