Best Performances & Voice Acting 2020
Honorable Mention: Briana White as Aerith (Final Fantasy VII Remake)
Staff Writer Ethan Anderson: This is Briana White’s first major voice acting role, but you wouldn’t be able to tell just by listening to her performance. It fits the character perfectly. She’s passionate and invested in her role as Aerith Gainsborough in Final Fantasy VII Remake, and it shows.
White takes the usually calm, composed, and at times exceedingly pure Aerith and is able to inject her with a playful and vibrant personality that’s unique to her performance. It’s a fitting approach here, as Aerith spends plenty of time traveling alongside the often stone-faced Cloud.
Aerith’s clever remarks and quick-witted comebacks during her banter with Cloud provide some of the best instances of dialogue in the game thanks to Briana White’s delivery.
Her Aerith isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, though. White is able to convey a range of emotions, especially when Aerith speaks about her past or her future with a more somber tone.
These are all noteworthy feats since so many new lines and scenes were added to Final Fantasy VII Remake that didn’t exist at all in the original 1997 game.
Even with some of the highest expectations imaginable coming from Final Fantasy VII fans, White doesn’t disappoint in the slightest.
