The developers of Final Fantasy VII Remake have revealed whether Barret Wallace can wield Cloud's iconic Buster Sword weapon in battle. The Buster Sword is infamous for being a ridiculously oversized weapon, to the point where it has been parodied many times, especially whenever the tropes of JRPGs are being mocked in other forms of media.
FF7 was released on the original PlayStation in '97. The game had groundbreaking visuals at the time, but it was a long way off from the era when developers would need to wonder how to make unusual items fit in a realistic-looking setting. This was the issue faced by the developers of FF7 Remake, who had to walk the tightrope of making the visuals match what fans remember while updating them in such a way that they still looked good. Cloud and the Buster Sword have appeared in a number of crossover games and FF7 spin-offs over the years, so their design had to be just right in FF7 Remake.
Only a few FF7 characters have used the Buster Sword, with Cloud Strife, Zack Fair, and Angeal Hewley all using it at some point in the series. The other party members in FF7 and FF7 Remake have their own weapons and fighting styles, so they've never used the Buster Sword in battle. FF7 Remake Character Modeling Designer Masaki Kazeno was asked in an interview for the Square Enix website whether Barret could use Cloud' Buster Sword.
"Barret’s biceps are clearly massive when you see them in game. As an easy-to-understand comparison, the surface area of a cross section of Barret’s upper arm is around four times larger than Cloud’s. If you extrapolate this difference in terms of simple physical strength, then yes, Barret does look like he could lift and chop with the Buster Sword in one hand. However, that is a very different thing to asking if he could wield it as a weapon. If we assume that the Buster Sword is made from iron then it would be a gigantic sword that weighs around 40kg and there would be many factors required to actually wield it effectively, other than just brawn. Basically, this shows just how amazing Cloud is for being able to use it so elegantly!"
The interview confirms that Barret can lift the Buster Sword with one hand, but he cannot wield it effectively as a weapon in combat. Barret is an incredibly strong person, but he only has one hand, and the prosthetic weapons he uses in FF7 Remake are mostly guns. It's revealed in Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII that there are advanced prosthetic limbs in the world of FF7, as Shalua Rui has a mechanical arm, but it's unlikely Barret has access to the same technology, at least not during the events of FF7.
Cloud and the other Buster Sword wielders are only able to use the weapon effectively due to outside reasons, as each of them had their strength enhanced in different ways. It's likely that only the members of SOLDIER could use a Buster Sword, thanks to the strength granted by their exposure to mako energy and being injected with Jenova cells. Barret might be a musclebound warrior, but it's unlikely that he could ever use the incredibly heavy Buster Sword to the same degree as the SOLDIER members, as they have the power of an extraterrestrial monster flowing through their veins.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will be released in winter 2023 for PlayStation 5.
Source: Square Enix