Vincent Valentine
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| Vincent Valentine | |
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 Vincent Valentine artwork by Tetsuya Nomura |
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| Game series | Final Fantasy series and Compilation of Final Fantasy VII |
| First game | Final Fantasy VII |
| Designed by | Tetsuya Nomura |
| Voice actor(s) (English) | Steve Blum |
| Voice actor(s) (Japanese) | Kazuhiro Nakata (Ehrgeiz) Shougo Suzuki (all other appearances) |
| In-Universe Information | |
| Class/Job | Unemployed, formerly a member of the Turks |
| Weapon | Gun |
| Race | Human |
| Home | Unknown (He is apparently living in Kalm in DOC) |
| Age | Physically 27 (He has ceased aging)[1] Biologically 57 in 'FFVII' 59 in 'AC' 60 in 'DOC' |
| Blood type | A |
Vincent Valentine (ヴィンセント・ヴァレンタイン Vinsento Varentain?) is a secret player character in the PlayStation RPG Final Fantasy VII and its computer-animated film sequel Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. He is also the hero of the PlayStation 2 spinoff game Dirge of Cerberus, and makes an appearance in the arcade fighting game Ehrgeiz.
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[edit] Character design
Vincent appears as a tall, brooding man with long, unkempt 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.[2] His cloak covers the lower half of his face and is held closed by a series of buckles. His eyes are distinctly colored red. As of Advent Children, his weapon of choice changed to a triple-barrel revolver named "Cerberus". The name derives from the dog's heads that adorn each of the three barrels as well as the silver charm that hangs from the hilt known as the Dirge.[3]
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 Shinra 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.[4]
[edit] Biography
[edit] Final Fantasy VII
Vincent was once a member of the Turks 30 years before the game of Final Fantasy VII. He was assigned to supervise The Jenova Project in Nibelheim, where he fell in love with a scientist named Lucrecia Crescent, an assistant to Professor Hojo.
At first unknown to Vincent, Lucrecia once was an assistant to his father Grimoire Valentine on the discovery of Chaos and Omega, but Grimoire died saving her life when the tests of the experiment went wrong. Vincent later discovered her link with his father’s death and asked Lucrecia why she never told him. She fled from Vincent, but he wanted to find her so he could tell her his true feelings for her. When he spoke to Lucrecia later, she didn’t want to be with him as she felt too guilty about his father’s death. She told him it was all her fault, and fled again, ultimately entering a relationship with her associate Hojo instead. Lucrecia became pregnant afterwards, and her unborn child was to be part of the next Jenova experiment of Hojo’s, which was an investigation into the effect of Jenova cells on an unborn child. Vincent was strongly opposed this and confronted Hojo to ask him if what he heard was true. As Lucrecia entered, Hojo told him it had nothing to do with him and that they were scientists; they knew what they were doing. Vincent asked Lucrecia if she was sure it was what she wanted, and she retorted that if it concerned only her then yes, she was sure. So, in the interest of science, she decided to proceed with the treatment. After a while, Lucrecia became very sick and started to see visions of what would become of her unborn son in the future. Outraged, Vincent confronted Hojo in the Shinra Mansion's underground laboratory. Hojo, being angered with Vincent’s approach, pulled out a gun from his lab coat and shot Vincent in the stomach. He proceeded to use his dead body as the subject for experiments. Lucrecia, who had been unable to help him, went into the lab where Vincent was to try to find a way to save him. Lucrecia started to look through her unfinished thesis on Chaos, Omega and the Lifestream. Hojo caught her looking at her files and said to her that she just wanted to use him so she could finish her thesis because of how people thought it was so “unrealistic”. Lucrecia didn’t want to believe she was doing it for that, so she persisted so she could try to save him. Lucrecia injected him with stagnant Lifestream which revived Vincent and turned him into the beast Chaos. He was able to be such a perfect host for Chaos because Hojo made his body so strong (immortal). However, due to Chaos becoming violent and nearly attacking her, Lucrecia put the materia called "Protomateria" inside him to keep Chaos and its feral nature under control.
Lucrecia left and tried to kill herself because she was not allowed to see her son, Sephiroth, and she wanted to punish herself for the pain she had caused Vincent. However, she was unable to due to the Jenova cells still in her body, so she went to the cave and trapped herself within the mako crystals. Vincent awoke on the operating table – Hojo and Lucrecia nowhere to be seen - and responded to his modified body with both anguish and rage. He believed that this was his punishment for his “sin” at not being able to save Lucrecia, so with that, he punished himself further more by putting himself in a coffin in the Shinra Manor basement where Hojo then locked the door. Due to Hojo's Metamorphose experimentation, this resulted in Vincent's anatomy being altered to where he could temporarily change his physical form into monstrous enities, this also is the reason chaos bonded with vincent so well. Vincent's age remains physically at 27 (because of Hojo) and he was found 30 years later by Cloud in “Final Fantasy VII”. It was while aiding Cloud that Vincent reencountered Hojo.
[edit] Meteorfall & Advent Children
During the Meteor Fall Crisis, Vincent and Yuffie were aiding Reeve in the evacuation of Midgar. Suddenly Vincent felt Hojo was still alive, although only for a brief moment before the man was seemingly destroyed in Meteor's outlash with Holy. After Meteorfall, Vincent reappeared two years later at the Forgotten City to rescue Cloud from Kadaj and his gang by transforming into an intangible monster evocative of his cloak. He revealed to Cloud what he knew about Kadaj's intentions and that he rescued two of the Turks, Tseng & Elena from them. He later showed up to help his friends defeat Bahamut Sin. It was Vincent who told his friends not to help Cloud and let him face his own personal battle against Sephiroth. He was seen in the end with all of his friends celebrating the defeat of Sephiroth and geostigma and even appeared in a picture all of them took together.
[edit] Dirge of Cerberus
One year later, Vincent was called by Reeve in an important matter to Kalm. There, Vincent becomes the prime target of the Deepground Soldiers. It would soon be revealed that they are after the Protomateria inside his body. Once removed from his body, Vincent begins to feel the stress of Chaos and its desire to kill. He faces the DGS leader, Weiss, or Vice in the Japanese version, who is possessed by the digitized mind of Hojo. Hojo explains how the alterations he did to his body made him a perfect host for Chaos and what he plans to do next. Vincent & Hojo have their final battle, which ended with Omega's awakening and the surfacing of Chaos. Thanks to the efforts of Shelke, however, Vincent is able to regain his consciousness while in Chaos's form and remember the truth of Lucrecia's wishes. While he survived the onslaught, Vincent was purged of Chaos during the final attack on Omega during its ascension from Midgar. Chaos's purpose is fulfilled and he returned back to the planet. Vincent thanks Lucrecia as she was the reason he survived all these years and leaves her resting place, able to begin his life anew finally.
Dirge of Cerberus Lost Episode Between the events of Dirge of Cerberus, Vincent took a WRO chopper to Nibelheim at the Shinra Mansion to find out why the Deep Ground was after him. His chopper was attacked by the Deepground .
[edit] Characteristics and abilities
Vincent is known for being adept at using different forms of firearms due to his training under the Turks.
Due to Hojo's reconstruction of Vincent he does not age[1] and possesses a number of supernatural abilities, like enhanced speed, agility, stamina and strength
In "Dirge of Cerberus" his melee attacks took on the form of purple auras. 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 devil-like Chaos. In Advent Children, he took on a flying ghostly red form evocative of his cloak. In "Dirge of Cerberus", the Galian Beast was remodelled into a more humanoid form with the ability to shoot homing fireballs and unleash seismic shockwaves, and Chaos was altered to resemble Vincent with demonic features, such as pale skin, yellow eyes, spiked-black hair, monster fangs, and frayed bat-like wings. Chaos had many powers such as a red/black beam that he used to kill Azul; was able to magically recreate his Death Penalty weapon which shot black/white death-rays; a melee attack that would release a red aura wherever he struck and ended the combo with a strange ball of energy, and an attack where he charges red or purple energy around him that he used to charge into Omega and destroy him.
[edit] Other appearances
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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. (Also the Latin verb "vincere" translates into "to conquer, outlast, defeat". To "outlast" would be the most fitting translation for ‘vincere’ since Vincent sleeps in the basement of the Shinra mansion for 30 years.)
- Due to the fact that Vincent and Yuffie Kisaragi are optional characters in FFVII, 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 Marlene requests from both Cloud and Vincent a phone to call Tifa and 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 when entering the battle with Bahamut SIN. In the Reminiscence of Final Fantasy VII featurette, he speaks on the phone with Cloud, telling him to pass a message on to Yuffie; "This is my phone, and she has no right to call it".
- Cloud's look in Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories share similarities with that of Vincent's FF7 look. Specifically, he bears a red cape that covers the lower half of his face, and has golden claws on the fingers of his left hand. Concerning the claws, Tetsuya Nomura has stated that they were indeed modelled after Vincent's, because Cloud shares many of the "dark" traits that Vincent shows in FFVII. There are subtle differences in the cape and claws as worn by Cloud, which can be seen here: [1] Nomura further commented in the Kingdom Hearts Ultimania interview that he wanted Vincent to appear in Kingdom Hearts. [5]
- His cellphone in Dirge of Cerberus was decorated in front of the flip-flop with a cerberus design. It is the same as the keychain attached to Cerberus, his triple-barrelled gun.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ a b Vincent's age, as provided in official materials, never changes: It remains fixed at 27, which is presumably how old he was when Hojo killed 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) However, following real time chronology, Vincent is said to be approximately 60 years old as of the events in FF7: Dirge of Cerberus
- ^ It 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 likely 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 characteristic typical to monsters (such as a gorgon, with brass claws and wings), which would be in line with Vincent's monstrous associations.
- ^ Final Fantasy Die-Cast Replica: Vincent Valentine's Cerberus - Final Fantasy Master Arms at BigBadToyStore. Retrieved on February 23, 2007.
- ^ Khosla, Sheila (2003). Tetsuya Nomura 20s. FLAREgamer. Retrieved on April 13, 2007.
- ^ http://www.khinsider.com/info/nomura2.shtml
[edit] External links
- Vincent Valentine on Final Fantasy Wiki at Wikicities
- Vincent Valentine character profile at the official Square Enix Final Fantasy VII site
- All About Vincent - Your ultimate source for Vincent Valentine (unofficial site)
- Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Ω Translations FAQ - Translations from the Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Ω
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Advent Children • Before Crisis • Crisis Core • Dirge of Cerberus • Last Order • Lost Episode Cloud • Aerith • Tifa • Barret • Red XIII • Cid • Yuffie • Cait Sith • Vincent • Zack • Sephiroth • Jenova • Rufus • Turks |
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