Final Fantasy VII Remake Pushed Even Further From Possibility

[Tom Goldman]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Pushed Even Further From Possibility

Square Enix is now saying that a remake of Final Fantasy VII would take a middle-aged man's entire life to complete.

Square Enix's fourteen years [http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=75085] of development time? Now, he's more than doubled that figure.

Speaking at a roundtable discussion held for the launch of Final Fantasy XIII in Korea, Kitase wasn't surprised at all by the topic of Final Fantasy VII. "We've gotten this question a lot from many countries," he said while laughing. He seems to be a little sick of it.

On the Final Fantasy VII remake this time, Kitase said: "To make FFXIII at this level of quality, it took us 3 to 4 years. If we were to make FFVII in the same style of FFXIII, it would take 10 times as long." Forget fourteen years, a current generation Final Fantasy VII would take forty years to put together! That's older than someone's dad.

Does Square Enix just want to stop the questions about the possibility for a Final Fantasy VII remake, or do these comments make sense? You've got to figure the company can reuse some assets from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children to help the process along or something. I get that Final Fantasy VII was a monumental RPG, especially due to all the cursing, but a forty-year development time is wacky beans.

Source: Andriasang [http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2010/05/30/versus_xiii_and_ffvii_remake/]

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[Flying-Emu]

Why does everyone act like FF7 is such a big deal? If they remade it, it would be the same game. I'd much rather have them work on another The World Ends With You than a remake of yet another FF game.

 

[AboveUp]

Why does everyone act like FF7 is such a big deal? If they remade it, it would be the same game. I'd much rather have them work on another The World Ends With You than a remake of yet another FF game.

Completely agreed. That or a new franchise, rather than a remake.

Also, why would FF7 take so long to remake? All the set pieces are already there, heck they're using upgraded models of the characters in the Kingdom Hearts series already. Not to mention the models from Advent Children...

I call bullshit.

 

[Sparrow]

What? How does that even make sense? They have the script. They have the game design, they have the music, they have all the concept art... honestly, it'd take less than two years tops. What a load of shite.

 

[Citrus]

Yeah, no, there's no way a FFVII remake would take forty years. I think they're just getting tired of hearing that question, in which case maybe they shouldn't have made that PS3 tech demo.

EDIT: Wait, he didn't actually say forty years, he just said, "it would take ten times as long." That would imply forty years, yeah, but that sounds more like an off-hand, hyperbolic, casual comment than anything.

 

[Low Key]

They probably just want to get everyone off of their guard so they can surprise release it sometime next year or something. Normally I'd take something like this at face value, but they keep talking about it for some reason. There comes a point when saying "it's not gonna happen" will suffice instead of going off on a diatribe about lengthy development times and other bullshit. It just seems like hype to me.

 

[LeonLethality]

I know he just doesn't want to remake it which I agree with. To hell with the awful game that is FFVII. Let's focus on more important things like Agito XIII, Versus XIII and XIV.

 

[wooty]

I reckon they're saying this to take some heat off the developers for now, then possibly release the bombshell in 5 years that it is in development. I remember when they said FFXIII might not be made, or at least a slim possibility. (At least I think it was 13)

 

[MGlBlaze]

Also, why would FF7 take so long to remake? All the set pieces are already there, heck they're using upgraded models of the characters in the Kingdom Hearts series already. Not to mention the models from Advent Children...

I call bullshit.

Likewise. There is no way in hell it would take that long. They are exaggerating greatly. The story and flow of events have already been established, and they could rip most of the system from the original FF7. I know there's a mantra of "Estimate how long the development will take and then add 50-100% to that to get the actual time" but that's ridiculous.

 

[CmdrGoob]

This shows just how much SE have fallen from their peak - now they're apparently too incompetent to even re-create their past glory in a reasonable time frame, let alone make something new...

 

[Irridium]

Sony managed to beef up the first 2 God of War games just fine.

Hell they don't need to completely remake the thing, just, well do what they did with God of War 1 and 2. Upgrade the graphics, add some trophies, and bam, you got millions upon millions of copies sold.

I really doubt that 40 year development time. I think he's just sick of people asking him about it.

 

[HeySeansOnline]

Why does everyone act like FF7 is such a big deal? If they remade it, it would be the same game. I'd much rather have them work on another The World Ends With You than a remake of yet another FF game.

I call bullshit.

True, i think their trying to do what bungie did with recon armor, save it for a bad time finacially, or maybe attach it to a less likely to work on its own project, I mean you have a trump card like that and you could save a company.

 

[Archemetis]

Now as much as I really don't care whether they did remake it or not...

40 years?

Honestly?
Even taking into account technological advances guaranteed to take place within those 40 years, file size advances console progression... General employee competence with the technology, newer, brighter minds coming in to think up better, easier ways to do complex things in shorter time...

The fact that realistically it'd just be making a game that looks like FFXIII with VII's story (which already exists) tacked onto it.

I mean, they have character models from Advent Children, just dumb them down enough to work on a console, and give them different outfits.

They have allotted Voice actors from Advent Children, so they wouldn't have to go through an audition process for the core cast.

The World map, I'll admit would be a hassle, but seriously, people have been used to fades-to-black or loading screens whenever they enter a town for years now, there are very few games that provide truly open world experiences of
'walk up to a town, it's there you can walk through it, leave roam the world, find another town, repeat what you did in previous town.'

But really, come on, They're making an airship mechanic for Versus...
And that's had just a little bit longer development time than XIII so I'm hopefully not assuming wrong that a world map would be included in that...

('Cos I won't be happy if it's another case of chose location, 'fly' there instantly, load screen to the ground bullshit again...)


But yeah, I'll acknowledge that it'd take a long time to make, most graphically high-end games do now days, but 40 years seems like it's overshooting it for the sake of shutting people up...

 

[Blind0bserver]

Oh come on, that has got to be complete hyperbole, and even if it is they need to stop wasting time and make it already, especially if it's going to take that long (sarcasm).

Completely legitimate arguments on whether or not VII was the crowning jewel of JRPGs or was simply great for it's time aside, remaking that game would practically be a license for Square to print money. After all, a hell of a lot of fans seem to want it.

 

[drisky]

14 years was hard to believe, 40 just sounds impossible. It sounds like there making things up.

 

[Jaebird]

Yeah, no, there's no way a FFVII remake would take forty years. I think they're just getting tired of hearing that question, in which case maybe they shouldn't have made that PS3 tech demo.

My thoughts exactly. Plus, I'm a firm believer in that it would have just ended up being the same game, only with a prettier look to it.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Why are we talking about this? Why not remake a good game? More importantly, why not make a new good game instead of remaking old ones?

 

[AboveUp]

True, i think their trying to do what bungie did with recon armor, save it for a bad time finacially, or maybe attach it to a less likely to work on its own project, I mean you have a trump card like that and you could save a company.

You've got a very good point there. A trump card could save a company during a bad time quite easily.

On the other hand, if they'd played it at the height of their popularity, they could avoid getting into a bad position quite easily.

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

A little farfetched this comment is but maybe by making this little commments shows his disinterest in making the damn thing and he wants to just stop the people from asking for this remake over and over and over again.