We don’t even have an official name for the third entry in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake series yet, but already trilogy lead Naoki Hamaguchi is starting to tease what we’re going to see in the game when it finally gets revealed.
In an interview over at Restart.Run, Hamaguchi revealed that one of the remake series’ most peculair additions, Shinra materia researcher and all-round nice-but-irritating lab assistant Chadley, will return in Part 3.
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“We understand that many fans are fond of Chadley,” Hamaguchi told Restart when the publication asked whether teh unfortunately-named NPC would ever become a playable character. “However, whether [he’d] become a playable character is something we’re unable to comment on at this time. That said, Chadley will continue to play an important role even in the final installment of the trilogy. His strong curiosity and tendency to talk a bit too much – inherent traits that he’s aware of and somewhat self-conscious about – will be further explored in the third game, too. It’d make me happy if players could warmly follow how Chadley becomes involved in the story and what role he takes in supporting it.”
Fair enough then! That actually seems to give us a bit of an insight into the as-yet-unnamed third game in the series, namely that we’re going to be helping our lil’ white-haired chum learn more about who he is, and what his place in this world may be. And I imagine we’ll be doing all of that via supplying him with combat data, of course.
The internet at large, of course, loves to hate the helpful little weirdo. Being a self-confessed nerd, the NPC often acts as a stooge for the mini-games introduced in the series; whether he’s providing optional battles in the vanilla release of Remake, bullying you with illegal moves as a Fort Condor grandmaster in Intergrade, or quietly being a professional card shark with Queen’s Blood in Rebirth, his character has grown beyond the confines of just being a materia vendor. For better or worse.
I reckon we’ll probably see Chadley oversee whatever minigame Part 3 decides to push this time aroud (even though Hamaguchi once told me Square Enix will take a slightly different approach to minigames in its next game). No doubt we’ll also be providing him with intel, too. As irriating as he can be – complete with so many lines of dialogue – I have found the subplot attached to Chadley quite interesting. I won’t spoil it here, but there is more to this innocuous character than first meets the eye.
Aside from the return of the NPC everyone loves to hate, what else do we know about Part 3, then? Well, Hamaguchi has already completed “over 40 full playthroughs”, apparently. It won’t “compromise on graphics whatsoever” despite move to multiplatform release, and it does, in fact, have a title… though we’re not yet privy to what that is, yet.
If Hamaguchi is giving interviews like this now, I’m sure we can expect more information on the game soon.
