FF13 Producer Explains Why FF7 Remake is Unlikely

[Nazrel]

"[A non-stop story] is one of the reasons, but more importantly, it is a result of considering HD graphics will be the mainstream. Considering the amount of work to make graphics that deserve HD, it is hard to make towns in the conventional style."

It's hilarious how the more "advanced" things become, the less they can actually do.
By that I mean I'm crying on the inside.

That said, really don't care if they make a remake of 7.

It's not that hard to follow; It's the workload.
I'm simplifying here, but bear with me...

An old sprite game, like say... Mario, involved sprites of 8 by 16 pixels, with maybe 3 frames of animation at most.
And using all of about 4 colours at that.

So... you needed to create images for a sprite totaling something like 384 pixels...

The kind of character meshes you'd see on a PS3 or similar, are into the region of 20,000-30,000 polygons, and on top of that, often have 4 or more texture maps that are 1024 by 1024 or larger, and often thousands of frames of animation. (though the methods have changed somewhat, making that relatively less work than a frame of sprite animation.)

If you were to pay as much attention to the little details on a modern character model as was given to old sprites, you'd be looking at paying attention to say...
40,000 points of animation data, 30,000 of character mesh, and 4,000,000 of textures.

That's something like 4 million to 400, or 10,000 times the work.

The reality, fortunately, isn't that bad, but the time required for a single item is still constantly increasing.

To remake FF7 with PS3 level graphics probably would require, at a rough estimate, 10-20 times as much work as creating the original did, simply because of the massive increase in graphical detail.

I'm just using this topic as an excuse to complain about the overemphasis on graphics now days.

 

[Xyllar]

Are these guys for serious? They can't do a remake because modern graphics are "too hard" to do? Sorry, I thought Square-Enix were supposed to be professional game developers. Higher quality graphics are supposed to give you MORE options not hold you back. If better graphics potentially lower the quality of the overall gameplay, then you're clearly doing it wrong.

 

[Amnestic]

They could always...make it on the PC?

Just a thought, but our architecture isn't labyrinthine and the Vista minotaur has been cut down now.

They already did.

The upgrades included things like giving Cloud a mouth, fixing some of the hilarious translation errors and a few gameplay glitches. Though it also created some glitches as well.

 

[NickCaligo42]

I mean really, those guys are working within gaming industry for more years than some of us live, so I guess they know what they are talking about.

Yes, because SEGA has also been in the industry for longer than some of us have lived and obviously knows how to make a game better than the average fan. Sonic 06 was such a well-polished, professional work. CLEARLY a classic smash-hit game and not a horrible, unfinished, broken game with a story that's made of the stuff of the worst fanfictions, because they're professionals! And EA games--they've been around just as long! Surely when they decided to put Dead Space: Extraction--a prequel to a game whose entire audience was based on the Xbox 360 and PS3--on the Nintendo Wii, it was an informed and wise decision.

Word for the wise: just because you're a big company that's been in the industry for a while doesn't mean you either know what you're doing or have adjusted well to new development standards, and it especially doesn't make you immune to bad planning or making mistakes. Case in point: John Romero. Maker of the original Doom. Complete failure as of the N64/PS1 age because he couldn't break out of his "making games in my garage with my buddies" mentality and become more professional about the way he did things. His philosophy: "design document? Who needs a design document! I have this summary I wrote on a napkin! That can be our design document! We'll just make the rest up as we go!" He's an icon in the world of game development and still regarded with all the awe people afford Keith Richards, but you wouldn't trust him with a multi-million dollar project, would you?

The next question is, if you don't trust John Romero of all people, then why should you trust Square any farther? If Square were well-adjusted their next-gen games like the Last Remnant and Star Ocean 4 wouldn't be flops, Dirge of Cerberus wouldn't have been critically panned across the board, and Final Fantasy 12 wouldn't have taken five years to make only for them to overhaul the entire license board system with the international version because THEY knew it sucked. News flash, people: a five-year development time isn't indicative of lots of content and effort so much as it is indicative of not knowing what you're trying to do or changing your mind frequently mid-development.

What's more, they've barely updated their development pipeline for years, depending so heavily on unique art assets that it both hurts their projects and that they don't know how to make GOOD modular assets. Now, I'll grant that Mass Effect is not necessarily the best counter-example to FF7--everything in Mass Effect is so uniform it's almost painful, but seriously? If you've ever played an Unreal Tournament 3 level you can see what kind of things you can do with modularity when you break the pieces down further. Hell, just read this article: http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/rsrc/Three/ModularLevelDesign/ModularLevelDesign.pdf

Granted that's on a smaller scale, but as you've pointed out they're professionals whose JOB it is to solve problems like these and they shouldn't be daunted by applying these ideas to a bigger project. Almost everything in FF7 lends itself quite well to modularity if you just look hard enough, and the pre-rendered backgrounds all give them a really clear blueprint to follow for any assets they'd have to build for the re-make, not to mention entire maps. The planning--the HARD PART--is already done for them. Furthermore, Final Fantasy 7 just isn't as big a game as people think it is. Midgar really boils down to a fistful of small towns worth of content, and every other settlement in the game is a village of like ten people, which any decent level design student could probably re-make and import into the Elder Scrolls Construction Set or even UT3. The only reason it could possibly be a problem for them is if they're trying to model EVERYTHING--as in every friggin' house in Midgar--which they weren't stupid enough to do even back then. Much of its design is made to hide the bulk of the city from the player with walls and barriers and buildings and present the ILLUSION of grand scale, such that any given segment of Midgar is really no bigger than a standard, SMALL multiplayer map in a shooter--a scale that could be expanded upon with modular construction.

Square's babying themselves. They can do better than they're doing, but they don't want to go through the effort to learn what it would take to do so. That's why their best games in the last several years have all been done on PSP. They're trying as hard as possible NOT to learn new development standards or techniques and stay inside their comfort zone. God help them when we have HD handhelds.

 

[Leaper]

Yes, because SEGA has also been in the industry for longer than some of us have lived and obviously knows how to make a game better than the average fan. Sonic 06 was such a well-polished, professional work. CLEARLY a classic smash-hit game and not a horrible, unfinished, broken game with a story that's made of the stuff of the worst fanfictions, because they're professionals! And EA games--they've been around just as long! Surely when they decided to put Dead Space: Extraction--a prequel to a game whose entire audience was based on the Xbox 360 and PS3--on the Nintendo Wii, it was an informed and wise decision.

Word for the wise: just because you're a big company that's been in the industry for a while doesn't mean you either know what you're doing or have adjusted well to new development standards, and it especially doesn't make you immune to bad planning or making mistakes. Case in point: John Romero. Maker of the original Doom. Complete failure as of the N64/PS1 age because he couldn't break out of his "making games in my garage with my buddies" mentality and become more professional about the way he did things. His philosophy: "design document? Who needs a design document! I have this summary I wrote on a napkin! That can be our design document! We'll just make the rest up as we go!" He's an icon in the world of game development and still regarded with all the awe people afford Keith Richards, but you wouldn't trust him with a multi-million dollar project, would you?

Well first of all, most of the big companies have few groups of people working in different games and usually lots of sub-groups, not to mention lots of freelancers for variuos small jobs. If game X was succesful, as a consumer you can't be assured that it's sequel will as awesome because most likely most (if not whole) of the team members that worked on one project has changed significantly. If if a game is releaes under brand "Square" you can't automatically expect it to kick some major ass, because you can't know who was working with it, how long it took to develop and so on.

Talking about Romero, he is a living history with how not to make a game (aka Daikatana). During it's making process he not only changed the engine few times, but a lot of the people he worked with were creating a game for the first time, so they basically learned as they were creating it.

The next question is, if you don't trust John Romero of all people, then why should you trust Square any farther? If Square were well-adjusted their next-gen games like the Last Remnant and Star Ocean 4 wouldn't be flops, Dirge of Cerberus wouldn't have been critically panned across the board, and Final Fantasy 12 wouldn't have taken five years to make only for them to overhaul the entire license board system with the international version because THEY knew it sucked. News flash, people: a five-year development time isn't indicative of lots of content and effort so much as it is indicative of not knowing what you're trying to do or changing your mind frequently mid-development.

Granted that's on a smaller scale, but as you've pointed out they're professionals whose JOB it is to solve problems like these and they shouldn't be daunted by applying these ideas to a bigger project. Almost everything in FF7 lends itself quite well to modularity if you just look hard enough, and the pre-rendered backgrounds all give them a really clear blueprint to follow for any assets they'd have to build for the re-make, not to mention entire maps. The planning--the HARD PART--is already done for them. Furthermore, Final Fantasy 7 just isn't as big a game as people think it is. Midgar really boils down to a fistful of small towns worth of content, and every other settlement in the game is a village of like ten people, which any decent level design student could probably re-make and import into the Elder Scrolls Construction Set or even UT3. The only reason it could possibly be a problem for them is if they're trying to model EVERYTHING--as in every friggin' house in Midgar--which they weren't stupid enough to do even back then. Much of its design is made to hide the bulk of the city from the player with walls and barriers and buildings and present the ILLUSION of grand scale, such that any given segment of Midgar is really no bigger than a standard, SMALL multiplayer map in a shooter--a scale that could be expanded upon with modular construction.

Square's babying themselves. They can do better than they're doing, but they don't want to go through the effort to learn what it would take to do so. That's why their best games in the last several years have all been done on PSP. They're trying as hard as possible NOT to learn new development standards or techniques and stay inside their comfort zone. God help them when we have HD handhelds.

I'm not saying that remaking FFVII is mission impossible, I'm just saying that I can understand why they (as a developer/producer) don't want to start making it, because it might not live to everyones expectations. Yes, you can cut Midgar to pieces so different areas can be acesssed via loading screens, or use some nifty programing that streams textures and models extremely fast and efficiently, or something else that I can't think of at the moment, but maye that's just too expensive to develop properly? Seriously, if a game company doesnt want to earn some (seemingly) easy money, maybe they are not so easy to get after all?

What's more, they've barely updated their development pipeline for years, depending so heavily on unique art assets that it both hurts their projects and that they don't know how to make GOOD modular assets. Now, I'll grant that Mass Effect is not necessarily the best counter-example to FF7--everything in Mass Effect is so uniform it's almost painful, but seriously? If you've ever played an Unreal Tournament 3 level you can see what kind of things you can do with modularity when you break the pieces down further. Hell, just read this article: http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/rsrc/Three/ModularLevelDesign/ModularLevelDesign.pdf

Well, talking about UT3 specifically, I'm quite familiar with UE4 and it's possibilities. I was seriuosly into mapping some time ago, created few complete levels with the engine and have few unfinished ones, so I guess I'm quite familiar with the workflow and the possibilies . Thing is that, when you are making whole new game you can adapt it to current possibilities, current available engines and so on. Like when Hideo Kojima created first Metal Gear, he didn't think "man, I want to create stealth game that looks like this and plays like that", he thought "Okay, we have this console right here, we can do this and that with it, now lets try to make an awesome game with it". Actualy I think I read this in Escapist somewhere (or maybe in Gamasutra, can't say for sure). And when you are remaking something, you have a lot more closed boundaries, you can't just take away one part of the game ebcause it's too demanding for current tech, you have to somehow adapt it to it, and that can be extremely painful and both time and money demanding.

 

[dochmbi]

FF7 is regarded as the best rpg of all time. If there is any game that deserves a remake, it's FF7.

 

[Amnestic]

FF7 is regarded by me, dochmbi, as the best rpg of all time. If there is any game that deserves a remake, it's FF7.

Fixed that for you.

FFVII was good. Replaying it years later has taught me just how much of my appreciation was simple nostalgia.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

Gameplay and graphics in good game walk side by side.

Thats is exactly (as Kitase said) why they don't want to remake it. Because of the hardware limitations is possibly extremely long production times.

Every time Square released Final Fantasy game, it was done in best graphics possible at that time. Because the gameplay can't go together with the graphics well in ths remake, they just don't want to make it. I can understand them. And like someone else said, if you indeed don't care about the graphics, why you just don't go and play old PS1 game?

I *do* play loads of old PS1, NES and SNES games. And also PS3 and XBOX 360 games.
The gameplay of FF 7 was and still IS top notch, so if they would remake it with current gen graphics it would still be a perfect combination of gameplay and graphics.

 

[ultimasupersaiyan]

I can understand why they can't make a reskined version of FFVII. Even I started to think of thing they would have to do to the game that would ruin the original. First off they would have to force Yuffie and Vincent into your party due to Advent Childern and Dirge of Cerberus. Conversation options would be removed to keep the story linear, which in turn would remove the option of which character you date. Voice data would eat up a good share of the data on whatever disc format they put it on. Also considering it took something like 5 years to make FFXIII a remake of FFVII would take even longer thanks to it's story length alone. I say us fanboy who want this game should buy extra copies of Square-Enix games and bombard them with emails stating that we are buying games we don't like just so you can make FFVII for PS3, no excuse now! Ok I kid with that last part. I can live without a remake for this generation of consoles, but when PS4 comes out I want FFVII remade on that as the first Square-Enix game made.

 

[-BloodRush-]

Nobody will ever spot talking about it, unfortunately. Well there is one way... but that requires the remake to be made, and then 99% of the people asking for the remake will just ***** about how everything is changed. (These people will never be happy.) However, every single one of them will still buy the game for some reason, so I don't know what they'll get worked up about.

But as for Kitase's problem, Blue has a solution: If graphics are the problem, then just make it on the PS2. Dust off FFXII's engine, whatever needs to be done, do it. I don't need my games to #%&!ing sparkle, just look good enough that the characters appear human, which sadly, is something the original FFVII didn't do. The current gen is hardly much better than the last one, graphics-wise anyway. Who cares?

basically. having advent children style cutscenes on the ps2(like dirge of cerberus) is definitely possible. i think they are just lazy.

even those of us who are tired of hearing about ff7 will probably buy a remake.

also, its hard to imagine cloud as the badass he was supposed to be if they give him the advent children treatment and make him look more like a girl than all of my high school love interests.

 

[CenterlockOnline]

Look, it's not really that difficult when you look at how much time and money they've already spent on the FF7 stories, how much hype they've created, but we all know if all this time and effort they took to produce all their other stories for FF7 they could have focused all that attention to our anticipated Remake they would have already shutup the fanboys. So why make all those titles? Obviously 1.) they want to milk us because FF7 was such a huge hit they could get us to buy anything that has to do with 7, and imagine how much revenue all those games have made them! 2.) They love to keep us in anticipation, and the more fans they can pull from their other FF7 stories the more people they will get to buy the anticipated Remake! 3.)There's no reason why they can't or why they will not, look at what they've made already. (In my Opinion) Square would be absolutely retarded to not give the fans what they want. There are easily millions of people who will buy that game that are already fans,and the millions more who have already been sucked in by the other FF titles and VII stories, so no matter what it's a win-win-win for Square by appeasing the silly fanboys.

I would understand why they would not thoug based upon several key factors. 1.) being in their eyes "WTF! We have all these stupid fans gloating over 1 of our titles, can't they just enjoy all the games we give them! Don't we spend enough time and money to make these weirdass stories with weirdass characters? Now they want us to stop our line and go BACK to an old title? for Fuck's sake we already did that story!"

I guess some kids will never stop liking their favorite story though, and ask their parents over and over to read the same lame story. Guaranteed the parent will get tired of reading it. Alas the parent must revamp certain details in a story to give it more appeal, because certainly the kids will get bored with the original, or it's not like newer stories the parent has told recently that has more imagination than it's predecessors.

I enjoy FF7, yes it is one of my favorite stories in RPG. I see on a financial and beneficial to Squeex if YES they do remake it(if they aren't already doing so) they do have to keep it quite confidential at this point, they must have a plan like earlier stated by someone that "No we will not be making any more FF7 titles and definately not any assumed REMAKE." And then give it the biggest Fireworks display to shut the @%$@W$^ people up. Upon credits of the game they can put in, "There you go bitches, you got what you wanted, you made us hella tons of money! NOW GROW UP, we will no longer making any more FF7's not now, not in the future, I don't care if 10 hell 20 years down the road you want another remake because you're 50 years old and still want ANOTHER remake because there is dust on your FF7 REMAKE, and hell we all know you've lost the original FF7...etc, THIS IS THE END OF FF7 THERE WILL BE NO MORE" THE END.

And that would summarize my point.
I enjoy FF7, give the fanboys a remake, shut em up. Move on and enjoy newer more engrossed titles and not say, "WHAT!? I paid $60 for this new FF title!? It's nothing like FF7,fuck this one. Get over it fanboys. Grow up. (Mind you I am in every sense attacking myself as I used to be like this until I woke up from being a total VII lunatic)

Enjoy my blog.

 

[Raziel_Likes_Souls]

Read: Cloud crossdresses in this game. Are you sure you want to see that in HD?

.

Either way, it would be nice if someone made a magical device that tracked down anyone in the world who asked or otherwise whined about a Final Fantasy VII remake and kicked them in the groin. Enough is enough already: Can we please stop talking about it now?

Yes, this. A thousand times this.

I have a feeling he'd look like a very blond Lightning.

Look at the 3rd picture. [http://volrathgt.wordpress.com/2010/01/17/ffxiii-is-lightning-a-female-cloud-strife/] He would.

I think Shamus put it the best, based of depth of the game and what not. He had some good points about this remake. Yes, it would be impractical if they remade FF7, due to budget and what not, but considering the fact that they made a movie, an anime series, and 2 spin-off games, you think they could've used their time a bit more wisely. And come on, Square brought it on themselves when they made this:What a fucking cock tease. And if I remember, anyone talking about a remake deserves a kick in the nuts.

Either way, it would be nice if someone made a magical device that tracked down anyone in the world who asked or otherwise whined about a Final Fantasy VII remake and kicked them in the groin. Enough is enough already: Can we please stop talking about it now?

Yes, this. A thousand times this.