In the trailer for the Final Fantasy VII, the voice acting for Barret really leans into that Mr. T characterization. It’s something that some fans had hoped would change in the process of remaking the game, and they’re frustrated that it didn’t.

Final Fantasy VII Remake Trailer English versus Japanese comparison

Kotaku video producer Paul Tamayo put it succinctly in a tweet:

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I asked Paul how he’d try to modernize the character, and he told me it’s something he thinks about all the time. “Especially as someone who watches anime on occasion—and whenever a black character comes on screen with the wild problematic features and just overall behaviors—I often wonder about how the Japanese portray black characters in general. In Barret’s case, I feel like just not having to resort to this like slick-talkin’, smooth ‘accent’ that could’ve probably been handled much better on the writer’s side and the performer’s side too,” he said. “Thinking about it a little more though, I honestly think they could’ve gone without that direction altogether... It just makes me wonder how many black producers/writers/directors are involved (if at all) when these characters are made or how they could’ve been ‘modernized’ responsibly in the right hands.”

Many fans were indeed hoping for a modernization of Barret with this remake. Barret’s voice actor, Beau Billingslea, is a wonderful actor, most famous for having played Jett in the English dub of Cowboy Bebop. In the trailer for the FFVII remake, though, he sounds like he’s about to start speaking in tongues in church. Yes lawd!

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In the reactions that I’ve seen, fans don’t want to censor or remove Barret from the game; they were just hoping to see a better portrayal of his character this time around. Many are frustrated, annoyed, are laughing at the character rather than with him or saying they just wish the creative team had made a different call. There are very few viral tweets about this topic, but the sentiment is there, quietly. One fan tweeted the trailer with the comment, “I wish they would Dead the Mr. T voice.” Another said that the trailer looked great, but the voice made them uncomfortable. The most aggressive criticism I saw came from Brandon Dixon, the creator of the upcoming tabletop RPG Swordsfall, which is set in an afrofuturist nation. “Can a game, for fucking once, just make the black guy NORMAL. Why is he a walking MTV cliche of what people THINK black men are like?” he wrote on Twitter. “Do [they] ever talk to PoC? At all?”

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Dixon’s frustration is on the surface in his tweet, but the plea at its core is simple and understandable. Black people want to see themselves in games—not as a stereotype that other people think they are, but as they actually are. As people.

We all know that Beau Billingslea is capable of handling this character. He has a career’s worth of roles proving that he is an empathetic performer. There is still so much unknown about this remake. Many things about this game, including the voice acting, could still change. If they do insist on keeping this iteration of Billingslea’s performance, though, I hope they let me summon the Holy Ghost in battle. Hallelu.