Red XIII appreciation thread

[G13]

Discuss why Red XIII is such a pimp.

I would definitely enjoy the newer installments more if there were some random, silly character added that turned out to be the best damn character in the game. Everything is too serious nowadays. I mean, sure, we had a frocobo steal the show in XIII, but he didn't have any lines. Where was his story arc? What motivated him!? Kimahri was an awful excuse for a Red XIII rehash. Like seriously, man, your tail isn't even on fire. And what did we have in XII? Fran? She's not silly, she just made me look at rabbits in a new and disturbingly strange light.

Everything now is about the struggles of humanity. Not humanity as in "all of us together", but about real people. It's all too believable! I don't want believable! I want a talking beast and I want it now goddammit! Bring back the silliness (though I could do without a thieving whore ninja-bitch, a retarded stuffed robot, and a depressed vampire (and while we're on the subject of silly, what happened to the gravity defying mega-boobs?)).

As if this weren't enough, it seems even his own compilation is against him! If there's ever a scene with him in it, he gets about 3 seconds of face time, and no lines. Cait Sith gets more lines than him! Mothersmurfing Hojo, the smurfing dead guy, gets more lines than him!

Instead of Dirge of Cerberus they should have made Howling Moon, a game completely about his origins. He's a talking animal who was kidnapped and experimented on solely because he is the last of his kind. He can live for hundreds of years. His tail is on fire. Oh yeah, and he's vital to the main story, unlike optional character Vincent over here.

Honestly, he's the only reason I played VII in the first place. A friend of mine and I went to a used game store and he told me to pick up FFVII. "It's amazing" he said. I only listened because I was promised the red guy with the fire-tail on the back was a playable character.

[Rantz]

It's one of the things I love about FFIX I hope one of the playable characters in Final Fantasy XV is a bear or a penguin. Or a... bearguin.

[Loony BoB]

Red XIII was a permanent fixture in my team. I loved his story, and I think the key moment in his story (when he howls) is probably the saddest moment in video game history. Beautiful.

There absolutely 100% need to be more non-humanoid characters in the Final Fantasy series. Humans and may-as-well-be-humans are boring, boring, boring. If you're insisting characters be humanoid, don't make them "human with bunny ears" or "human with leather skin" - go the full throttle and mess about with their size and shape. Look at the Shumi Tribe and even fairies for great examples of future characters. Our characters don't need to always be of similar size and shape, SE. Get creative! Ideally, throw away the idea that a character must be humanoid and look at Red XIII for a shining example of what can make a great character.

[champagne supernova]

Red XIII is awesome. So calm, so stoic, so able to balance on his 2 legs and look like a sailor, so full of witty dialogue - Tifa: "It talked!?" Red XIII: "I'll talk as much as you want later, Miss." - who couldn't love him.

In all seriousness, Red was definitely one of my favourite characters. VII actually had a fairly awesome cast. The bad-ass in Barrett, the swearing, smoking, cool guy in Cid, the all-round awesomeness of Red. And Tifa, who is just epic in many ways.

I don't think Vincent having a greater role in the compilation is a bad thing, but the lack of Red is. Apparently it's got something to do with the difficulty of rendering his fire tail.

[MJN SEIFER]

I would have loved there to be some form of spin-off game for him.

Also, I like how he was handled in the game - I'm sure when most people were introduced to the character they were no doubt expecting him to be a simple talking animal character who was just "there", instead he ended up being quite a key character to the storyline, and also one with a very serious backstory. In fact one magazine I used to have (lost it years ago, can't even remember which on it was) contained an early look at FFVII while it was still in development, and it talked about the characters and what was known about them at the time from the test version they were given - it stated that there was no obvious way Red XIII seemed to fit in to the storyline, and they assumed he probably didn't.

[Mercen-X]

"Red XIII is awesome."

"The Moomba is VIII's answer to having no Red XIII."

"The Ronso is X's answer to having no Red XIII."

"The Cerberus is XII's answer to having no Red XIII."

"Red XIII is in Ehrgeiz, beeches!"

"They had a Red XIII-ish character in Shadow Hearts II."

More FFs should have four-legged creatures as party members... useful four-legged creatures. Even Rinoa's Angelo would have been acceptable... if he talked.

[Dr. Acula]

Red XIII needs to be in every Final Fantasy game from now on. Just sayin'.

[G13]

^ I can dig it.

Apparently it's got something to do with the difficulty of rendering his fire tail.

What a terrible excuse. This makes me angry. :cuch:

[Loony BoB]

Square-Enix: Capable of making multiple CGI movies including thousands of strands of hair on a single characters head.

"Wait, fire? His tail has fire at the end of it? Oh man. I'm not sure we can do that... I mean, CGI has come up with flaming balrogs, fire-breathing dragons, fire spells and, uh, fire... but a fire-tail? That's extreme."

[G13]

Seriously, man! What kind of bull honkey is that!?

And another reason Red XIII is better than all the rest: he has the most to be depressed about and he takes that trout and kicks it right in the ass. He's an orphan, the last of his kind, he spent most of his life hating and misunderstanding his father, he got taken from the only home he ever knew and had crazy experiments done on him, and the only family he had left dies randomly. Cloud and Vincent are such d-bags compared to this hero.

"I don't know who I am. Am I him or am I me? "

"My girlfriend's other boyfriend shot me and now I'm a vampire. "

"Are we at North Crater yet?" *sleeps*

[champagne supernova]

Sorry, wasn't the fire tail, it was the fur.

This is because his fur makes him difficult and costly to animate.

Yeah, surely fur is easier to animate than hair. Although there would be a lot of fur.

[Loony BoB]

I dunno, he always looked kind of short-haired to me. Well, for the most part. And his mane isn't exactly much more work than that of Tifa, surely?

[cloud_doll]

Haha remember when the crew was put in jail right after they rescued Aeris and Red XIII? Then Cloud wonders how everyone is doing and it goes to Red XIII...

Red XIII
"............Grandpa."

Barret
"Grandpa!? Ha, ha, ha...... Grandpa, hmm.... ha, ha, ha......."

(Red XIII sits up.)

Red XIII
"What's so funny?"

Barret
"Nothin'...... ha, ha"

[Loony BoB]

I never got that joke. =|

[MJN SEIFER]

I never got that joke. =|

Not really a joke, hearsay. I think it was Barret reacting to Red XIII suddenly saying "grandpa" for no obvious reason.