Final Fantasy VII Mobile Port is "Years" Away

[StewShearerOld]

Final Fantasy VII Mobile Port is "Years" Away

Supposed file size issues may keep Final Fantasy VII out of the mobile market for "years."

Square Enix recently announced that it would be <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/128580-Square-Enix-Final-Fantasy-VI-Mobile-Port-Like-a-Remake>updating and remaking Final Fantasy VI for release on Android and iOS. Notably, included among the talk surrounding the announcement was some teasing about a future mobile adaptation of Final Fantasy VII. "We would like one day to be able to work with [Final Fantasy VII]," said producer Takashi Tokita. It wasn't anything official by any means, but it was arguably the closest the company has come to confirming any sort remake.

That being the case,Tokita has now said that if Square Enix does anything mobile with VII, gamers probably won't be seeing it for some time to come. "It's not that it's not impossible for us to develop Final Fantasy VII for mobile," said Tokita. "It's that currently, space will be an issue. Phones won't be able to contain the space it takes. It's over a gigabyte. People are probably going to have to wait a few years."

The validity of Tokita's claim have <a href=http://kotaku.com/final-fantasy-vii-isnt-on-phones-yet-because-its-t-1444974010>quickly been challenged by some within the gaming community who have noted that mobile platforms already play host to games well exceeding "a gigabyte." <a href=https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xcom-enemy-unknown/id639544885>XCOM: Enemy Unknown is 1.88GB while <a href=https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/infinity-blade-iii/id610003290?mt=8>Infinity Blade III is just under 1.5GB. The PSN version of Final Fantasy VII, in turn, is 1.35GB. Granted, the PC version is 3GB, but we have a feeling Square Enix has enough in-house talent to devise a version of the game that stays underneath Apple's <a href=https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/iTunesConnect_Guide/18_BestPractices/BestPractices.html>2GB size limit.

Source: <a href=http://www.shacknews.com/article/81559/final-fantasy-7-for-ios-and-android-will-take-years?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter>Shack News




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[Dr.Awkward]

It shouldn't be hard to fit this game into a 1GB package these days - After all, isn't most of the game's size due to the cutscenes? Video compression has improved greatly, and even then with the technology, you can have those scenes take place in-game instead of using the original cutscene. However, what they could also do is use an existing engine that works on portable devices (Unity or Unreal 3, which Square actually has experience with) as a base and rebuild the game's levels and mechanics using the assets from the PC release (but the music assets from the original PS1 version).

For Square to say years? That sounds like this: "We don't want to remind ourselves that were a more successful company in 1997 than we are now." It's a bad excuse for sure.

 

[CriticalMiss]

For Square to say years? That sounds like this: "We don't want to remind ourselves that were a more successful company in 1997 than we are now." It's a bad excuse for sure.

I've got to second this. Given that they are a fairly large developer it's not like they don't have the money and resources available to put a game from the last century on a modern device. It's either a terrible excuse that people have already seen through or they were planning on remaking it with the same graphics etc as the FFXIII games. Or maybe they want it to work on the N-Gage?

 

[Grabehn]

It's years away since they don't want to release a game that's better than the shit they try to push nowadays, got it. And that's coming from someone that never played any FF aside from Crystal Chronicles.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Lolz. We can already play it on phones. Its called "a ps1 emulator". They can take all the time they want cause its much easier to rip and load up a drm-free iso onto a device anyway. I can only imagine they consider 1+ gig a space issue because they don't want users to be able to move the game to their sd card and find a way to rip the apk file even though trying to stop people would be pointless and get in the way of customers who would buy it legitimately through the Play Store. Though they probably only care about getting under the 2 gig limit to release it on iOS cause its completely locked down just how they like it, aside from those dirty jailbreakers who are pirates like android users

 

[deathbydeath]

I knew a guy in high school who played FF7 on his phone in front of me, using a PS3 controller for input. For free. Square Enix, get with the times you poor, incompetent scrubs.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

...People are still on about that? Not that I wouldn't want to play FF7, it's just that I don't have that sort of mobile phone. Maybe I could look into getting an emulator...

 

[thiosk]

I played the first act of FF7 the day it dropped on steam, and boy, was I ever disappointing. I had forgotten how utterly annoying the random encounter mechanic is.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Well the year is almost over. Square Enix probably realized they still had some bullshit left in the tank.