All the party members in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth can ride chocobos, and that includes Red XIII despite his leonine appearance. The pose he adopts on chocoback is pretty ridiculous, and nobody was more surprised than the game's animators that creative director Tetsuya Nomura gave it the stamp of approval.
"Red XIII is a playable character, so along with others, he has to climb a ladder and perform field actions, as well as sit on a chair," battle animation director Hiroyuki Yamaji explains in a new YouTube documentary. "As for riding the chocobo, Nomura-san requested not to have him in a 'sitting' position, and it was a must for him to hold the reins in his hands, so from there we made several pose variations which we had Nomura-san review, and he said 'that's the one' about that pose."
