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Vincent Valentine (ヴィンセント・ヴァレンタイン, Vinsento Varentain) is a fictional character in the critically acclaimed role-playing game Final Fantasy VII and the protagonist in the third-person shooter Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII. He also makes appearances in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII series and the fighting game Ehrgeiz.

The English voice actor of Vincent is Steven Blum, while the Japanese voice actor was Kazuhiro Nakata in Ehrgeiz and Shōgo Suzuki in all other appearances.

Character design

Vincent appears as a tall, thin, brooding man with long, unkempt black hair wearing a ragged red and black cloak over black clothes. His left arm below the elbow is covered by a metallic, golden claw. 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 most likely an ordinary, albeit gloved, hand underneath the golden claws, presumably attached to a similarly ordinary arm. However, some fans still argue against this interpretation. 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. His cloak covers the lower half of his face and is held closed by a series of buckles. His eyes are distinctly coloured red. This is natural, not caused by experimentation on him, as his father Grimoire Valentine has identical eyes (Lucrecia notes this in a Dirge flashback) 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.^[1]

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.^[2]

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.

Tetsuya Nomura commented in an interview that he wanted Vincent to appear in the Kingdom Hearts series. ^[3] Instead, he opted to model Cloud's look in the series after Vincent due to Cloud sharing many of the dark traits that Vincent shows in Final Fantasy VII. Cloud bears a red cape that covers the lower half of his face, and has golden claws on the fingers of his left hand.

Characteristics and abilities

Vincent is known for being adept at using different forms of firearms due to his training under the Turks.

Due to Lucrecia's injection of the Chaos gene into Vincent he does not age^[4] and possesses a number of supernatural abilities, like enhanced speed, agility, stamina and strength.

In Dirge of Cerberus his melee attacks involved various kicks and using his metal claw, with a purple aura trailing behind them. 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 vampire-like Chaos. Concerning his inner demons, 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.

Appearances

Vincent was once a member of the Turks thirty years before the events 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. Grimoire died in an accident concerning Chaos and Omega, pushing Lucrecia away when the tests of the experiment went wrong. Vincent later discovered her link with his father and asked Lucrecia why she never told him. When he questioned her, she fled from him. He found Lucrecia later and tried to express his feelings for her, but she didn’t want to be with him as she felt too guilty about his father’s death because, she told him, it was all her fault. Ultimately she entered a relationship with her associate Hojo instead.

Lucrecia becames pregnant (presumably by Hojo), soon afterwards she and her unborn child become parts of the Jenova Project, an investigation into the effects of Jenova cells on an unborn child. Vincent was strongly opposed to this and confronted Hojo to ask him if what he heard was true. As Lucrecia entered the encounter, Hojo told him it had nothing to do with him and that they were scientists; they knew what they were doing. Vincent then turned to Lucrecia if she was sure this was what she wanted, and she retorted that it concerned her and not him, so she was sure. 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, Sephiroth. Outraged, Vincent confronted Hojo in the Shinra Mansion's underground laboratory. Hojo, angered by Vincent's approach, pulled out a gun from his lab coat and shot Vincent in the stomach.

Lucrecia tried 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 mocked her, saying she just wanted to use Vincent to prove her thesis, as many of her colleagues thought it was “unrealistic”. Lucrecia didn’t want to believe she was doing it for that, so she continued to try to save him. Lucrecia injected him with stagnant Lifestream which revived Vincent and turned him into the beast Chaos. However, due to Chaos becoming violent and attacking anything in its way, Lucrecia put the materia called "Protomateria"(most likely left over by Grimoire Valentine's past experiments with her), inside him to keep Chaos and its feral nature under control.

Later, Hojo proceeded to use his body as the subject for experiments with Jenova cells that resulted in Vincent's body becoming stronger and capable of transforming into beasts. A source of constant shame and hate that Vincent experiences towards the mad scientist. However, Hojo's experiments on Vincent ended up being only a partial success in line with his expectations due to Chaos' presence in his body. Vincent remains a perfect host for Chaos, Hojo's tampering having made his body able to cope with the stress of the powerful primevel being, effectively making him immortal. Although it is important to note that it is unsure weither or not these modifications where brought before or after Lucrecia's own attempts at reviving him using her thesis.

Vincent eventually awakes on an operating table. Due to Hojo's metamorphose experimentation, Vincent's anatomy is altered to the point where he can temporarily change his physical form into monstrous entities. Vincent responded to his modified body with both anguish and rage. Believing it to be the punishment for his “sin” of not being able to save Lucrecia nor her child from the Jenova Project. He is locked away by Hojo in the Shinra Manor basement in what is believed to be some kind of coffin and/or stasis pod for the better part of 30 years, the keys to his location elaboratly hidden away in a series of enigmas throughout the manor. Because of the many experiments conducted upon him, Vincent's age remains physically at 27, not 60, which should be his actual age in Dirge of Cerberus. He is also briefly encountered in Before Crisis, the mobile phone game concerning the storyline of the Turks.

Final Fantasy VII

After sleeping for thirty or so years, Vincent is found by Cloud, who manages to retrieve the key from the safe. Vincent is then surprised to hear Cloud speak about Sephiroth, Lucrecia's child, tying him to the group's storyline. Cloud informs him of the happenings of the last 30 years, this contributes to make Vincent feel more guilt for his failure to stop the experiment. He triest to return to sleep in his coffin. After some further coaxing from Cloud, he emerges from the coffin again and informs the group about Lucrecia, his relation to her and how she is Sephiroth's true mother, he then shuts himself back in the coffin. When Cloud leaves the room and begins to head back upstairs, Vincent catches up to him and joins Cloud after questionning him and learning that his group may cross paths with Hojo sooner or later.

For the remainder of FFVII, Vincent plays a very minor role, with very little story aspect centered around him (even less than Yuffie, the game's other optional character). The only other game event that there is any focus on Vincent is when they use the submarine and surface in a small lake surrounded by mountains. They find a cave in one of the surrounding mountains, and inside the cave Vincent finds Lucrecia who, after the birth of Sephiroth, became wrapped in pain and seemingly had withdrawn herself to that region of the world. Lucrecia interrogates Vincent about Sephiroth, which he lies to her about, telling her that he is dead in order to spare her the pain of learning about the atrocities that her son had committed.

It should also be noted that if he is in the main party before the battle with Hojo, Hojo informs Vincent that Hojo was Sephiroth's father, and Vincent reacts in disbelief. He then claims that it should have been Hojo punished by sleeping in a coffin, not himself. Furthering rumors of the possiblities that Vincent might be or has thought at some point that he was Sephiroth's father. A topic which is still not clear in his past.

Due to Vincent's status as an optional character of the game, he is noticeably absent from the ending Final Fantasy VII. This is because the game's ending was done in CGI so he could not simply be omitted from the scene as he could during normal gameplay; his presence in the game's ending would only serve to confuse players who did not unlock him. However, this was later remedied in the introduction scene to Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII which shows Vincent and Yuffie (who was also absent from the game's ending) aiding Reeve in the evacuation of Midgar just before Meteor was about to crash into the city, which would imply that they had left the Northern Crater for Midgar ahead of the rest of the group. While on the Sister Ray, Vincent realized that Hojo may still be alive. He had barely survived the earlier fight with Cloud's group and was able to make his way over a computer terminal. It is later revealed that he stored his mind into virtual memory and uploaded it onto a network. Vincent prepared to finish the man off, but was forced to flee and was rescued by Yuffie on a hovercraft escaping the crumbling city of Midgar.

Final Fantasy VII Advent Children

After Meteorfall, Vincent reappears two years later at the Forgotten City to rescue Cloud from Kadaj. He reveals to Cloud that he has done some reconnaisance and knows about Kadaj's intentions and that he has also rescued two of the Turks, Tseng and Elena, from them. He later shows up to help his friends defeat Bahamut SIN. It is Vincent who tells his friends not to help Cloud and let him face his own personal battle against Sephiroth. He is seen in the end with all of his friends celebrating the defeat of Sephiroth and Geostigma and even appears in a picture of all of them took together.

Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII

A year after the events of Advent Children, Vincent is called by Reeve with an important matter in Kalm. There, Vincent becomes the prime target of the Deepground Soldiers. It is revealed that they are after the Protomateria inside his body. Once removed from his body, Vincent begins to feel the stress on his body of being a host for Chaos. He faces the DGS leader, Weiss, who has been possessed by the digitilized mind of Hojo. Hojo explains how the alterations he did on Vincent's body made him a perfect host for Chaos and what he plans. Vincent and Hojo have their final battle, which ends with Omega's awakening and the forced surfacing of Chaos, pushing Vincent (the host) deep into his own mind. Thanks to the efforts of Shelke, Vincent is able to regain consciousness while in Chaos's form. While he survived the onslaught, Vincent is purged of Chaos during the final attack on Omega during its ascension from Midgar. Chaos's purpose is fulfilled and the primevel being returns to the planet. Vincent mentally thanks Lucrecia for his will to survive all these years and leaves her resting place, able to begin his life anew having made his peace.

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.

Of Interest

Vincent is often seen as one of the more popular characters in the Final Fantasy VII conglomerate. Even rivaling the main character, Cloud Strife, and the main antagonist, Sephiroth (who is often voted to be one of the most popular villains in game culture of all time). Many attribute it to the very rich history that this character received within the game. Spanning 30 years prior to the main story of Final Fantasy VII and which connected with many of the other important characters and elementals in the game. His visual character design and his own mysterious personality within the game due to his status of unlocked character all contributed to his growing popularity with fans of the game. He eventually received his own courtesy game to further his rich story and background.

The meaning of the name Vincent Valentine derives from the latin words 'Vincentius' which means conquering and 'Valentinus' which means strong and/or healthy. The name Valentine is also often accompanied by romantic connotations due to many tragic stories and legends of saints and martyrs bearing the same name throughout Christian history. The best known Valentine or Valentinus is Saint-Valentine of Via Flaminia rome, who's story inspired the modern day celebration of St-Valentine's day celebrated by many cultures. In essence his own name described him as a strong, healthy bodied conquerer(linking the modifications on his body as well as his past with the Turks) and as a tragic lover who lives through years of suffering like the many martyrs who bore the same name before him. It's very likely that it was chosen consciously to describe him as a character who before his rise to popularity was planned to have very little background as a secret character.

References

External links

• Vincent Valentine character profile at the official Square Enix Final Fantasy VII site
• all about Vincent Valentine Media, Profile, and everything about Vincent Valentine
• Vincent Valentine on the Final Fantasy Wiki