The Honeybee Inn is a location in Final Fantasy VII Remake. A members-only night club in Wall Market, it is visited in Chapter 9, "The Town That Never Sleeps", where Cloud Strife needs a makeover to partake in Don Corneo's audition. The Honeybee Inn is owned by the eccentric entertainer known as Andrea Rhodea, who supposedly has a three-year-long waiting list for appointments to meet him.
The Honeybee Inn is is based on the Honey Bee Inn brothel from the original game. Although the flashy decor and the bee outfits remain, the two locations are vastly different in atmosphere.
History[]
Ms. Folia.
Ms. Folia, having dreamed of dancing since being a little girl, danced at the Honeybee Inn at night as a honeygirl to live her dreams. She kept this secret from the children.[1]
In "The Town That Never Sleeps", Cloud and Aerith Gainsborough came to Wall Market to save Tifa Lockhart from Don Corneo, but found that they can't get into the don's abode without taking part in the audition themselves. Andrea Rhodea, the owner of the Honeybee Inn, was one of the Trio who recommend girls for Don Corneo's consideration (thus representing a way into the auction), but when Cloud and Aerith visited the club, they found Andrea would not see anyone without an appointment, and that the next available would be in three years' time.[2]
After the two won the Corneo Cup tournament at the Corneo Colosseum, however, Andrea took an interest in Cloud, inviting him via Madam M him to the club. When Cloud did not want Aerith to take part in the audition alone, Aerith told Cloud about Andrea's proposition and hurried him to the club, planning to seek Andrea's endorsement for Cloud to become the third "girl" for the don's choosing.[3]
Cloud gets his makeover.
The two arrived at the club where the honeygirls told Cloud that Andrea was waiting for him and thought it would be a good idea for Cloud to practice dancing first. After practing, the girls dragged Cloud to the floor, where Andrea told him he "understood" Cloud's intentions,[note 1] but informed Cloud he still required approval and challenged him to a dance off. Impressed by Cloud's moves, he transformed him. The crowd deemed it the best show at Honeybee yet.[3]
Palmer outside the club.
In the private lounges while Cloud was present were a dressmaker whose VIP card Cloud and Aerith had helped returned earlier, as well as the Shinra Electric Power Company executive Palmer, outside, unwilling to go home despite his assistant's insistence.[3]
Gameplay[]
Cloud's Honeybee Inn makeover from FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE
After talking to the honeygirls or beginning the game with Andrea Rhodea, the player takes part in a rhythm game where they need to respond to button prompts. If they do perfectly in the tutorial, they unlock a new track for the music collection: 
Let the Battles Begin! REMAKE. During the dance off with Andrea, if the player does well Aerith, who is watching from the crowd, will be elated, but if the player does poorly she is embarrassed for Cloud. If the player does well they get earrings to add to Cloud's attire from Andrea.
Past the reception on the way to it is also possible to inspect four different private rooms. The bottom-right room contains Johnny's father, with a honeygirl who asks him to identify the shape: either "Circle", "Cross", "Triangle", or "Square", and answering "Triangle" is correct. There is a sedative in this room. 
In the top-right room, peeking in reveals Palmer chasing a honeygirl. In the top-left, a customer is being massaged by a honeyboy. Finally, the bottom-left room has a honeygirl in a changing room in front of her makeup.
Musical themes[]
An arrangement of the Honeybee Inn theme called "An Unforgettable Night" plays while outside of the inn while another one called "The Sweetest Honey" plays while inside.
"Stand Up" plays during the stage show, "Funk with Me" plays during the tutorial on the rhythm minigame, "Sync or Swim" and "Vibe Valentino" and "Stand Up - Reprise" plays during the performance. The music for the dance-off was decided on first, and then reworked to fit with the different timings. Motomu Toriyama, who was in charge of the Honeybee Inn scenes, went with the composer, Mitsuto Suzuki, to a club in Roppongi to get inspiration.[4]
Behind the scenes[]
The Honey Bee Inn was a seedy brothel in the original Final Fantasy VII. According to the developers, the Honeybee Inn is "revived [for Remake] ... as a pantheon of entertainment, which couldn't be realized back then".[5] Cloud crossdressing is a memorable part of the original game, and the developers wanted to include it in the Remake since the beginning. Co-director Motomu Toriyama came up with the idea to make the scene more of an extravaganza and a stage performance.[4] The developers knew that the fans expected Cloud's crossdressing to be included, and thus wanted it to play a more useful role in Remake.[6] Since the Honeybee Inn was going to be drastically changed, the developers wanted to make it "highly entertaining" and referenced things like Las Vegas, French Moulin Rouge, Parisian cabaret and Japanese burlesque to make the location feel more like a spectacular show featuring a dance battle.[7][8][4]
The preparatory phase for the dance sequence took up the longest period in its development.[9] Toriyama started with the concept of Cloud taking the spotlight on a stage show, and added the dance-off. Toriyama wanted Cloud's transformation to take place on stage before dancing with Andrea and striking a pose. The developers gave the choreography team an overview of what they were looking for. Square Enix commissioned a team of professional dancers that create burlesque shows who proposed changing the concept and choreography for each section of the dance-off. Initially, the dance-off included a pole-dancing scene and filming began on an elaborate set, but that part ended up being taken out due to ratings concerns.[4] Afterward, the developers were given the animations for Cloud and Andrea's dance sequence and were tasked with incorporating it into the game. Because the dance was so dynamic, rather than muddling the screen with two-dimensional UI elements, the team integrated three-dimensional UI into the sequence.[8] Concept art of the Honeybee Inn dance sequence was later shown by the developers on Twitter.[10]
The developers wanted the scene to both live up to fan expectations while taking modern sensibilities into consideration, such as eschewing stereotypical gender depictions. The aim was to build a supportive message for Cloud in a scene that would have amusing contrast but would stay "dignified and beautiful". A longer conversation between Cloud and Andrea was planned, but needed to be edited down to make the scene snappier. Other ideas besides the dance-off were floated, and some were incorporated into the other rooms at the inn.[4]
Motomu Toriyama and the team had decided from the start of development to change the original episode to be from a gender-free perspective.[9] Toriyama thought that expressing diversity with LGBTQ inclusion was an important issue for everyone involved in making content, and in the Remake, the original game was rebuilt not just with the latest technology, but the story content was also updated in line with modern sensibilities.[11]
Gallery[]
Notes[]
Annotations[]
Citations[]
- ↑ Final Fantasy VII Remake script § "To Corneo's Mansion"
- ↑ Final Fantasy VII Remake script § "Andrea Rhodea"
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Final Fantasy VII Remake script § "Aerith's Plan"
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Heaney 2021
- ↑ Bishop 2020
- ↑ Famitsu July 2020
- ↑ Thang 2020
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Juba 2020
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Godhania 2022
- ↑ Square Enix November 2022
- ↑ King 2021
References[]
- Bishop, Jake (2020, February 17). "Final Fantasy 7 Remake “Surpasses Even My Own Expectations,” Says Kitase". From Respawn First. Archived from the original on 20:14, February 18, 2020 (UTC).
- Juba, Joe (2020, May 21). "Final Fantasy VII Remake Creators Answer Our Questions About Summons, Combat, And Dance Scenes". From Game Informer''. Archived from the original on 14:57, May 24, 2020 (UTC).
- Thang, Jimmy (2020, June 30). "How Square Enix leveraged Unreal Engine to modernize FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE". From Unreal Engine. Archived from the original on July 3, 2020.
- MKillerby translating the July 22nd Famitsu interview with Naoki Hamaguchi (n.d.) . Translation: Toriyama and Hamaguchi (FF7R co-directors) interviews in Famitsu. Archived from the original on July 22, 2022.
- Duncan Heaney (n.d.) . FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE INTERGRADE: Inside the Honeybee Inn. Square Enix Games. Archived from the original on 24 June, 2021.
- King, Jade (2021, July 6). "Final Fantasy 7 Remake Interview: Yoshinori Kitase, Naoki Hamaguchi, and Motomu Toriyama On Recreating A Classic". From The Gamer. Archived from the original on 4 July, 2021.
- Godhania, Sunil (2022, August 12). "Final Fantasy VII Remake Revisited Chapter 9: The Town That Never Sleeps". From Square Enix Blog. Archived from the original on August 26, 2022.
- Square Enix [@finalfantasyvii] (2022, November 1). 🐝 Welcome to the Honeybee Inn! 🐝 [Tweet]. Twitter.