The Final Fantasy VII Remake is a Fantasy

[Con Carne]

Well, I have to admit, I was one of the nay-sayers. But after reading the article and having it explained properly, I can understand why it would suck to remake. Though, I do have to agree with everyone else who has said "I don't see how it would take any longer or be any more expensive than making a new FF title."

 

[elricik]

I call B.S. on this article and B.S. that they can't do it. The bottom line is that they don't want to do it, which is understandable. But why don't they just come out and say they don't want to do it rather than come off as completely incompetent to their fans.

 

[Loop Stricken]

See what you've done now; after reading this I now have Those That Fight Further [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o_NIZcfINk] stuck in my head.

Spoiler

 

[tendo82]

They'll do it. It may not be a scene for scene, mechanic for mechanic remake, but they will remake it in one form or another. It's the single most valuable IP they have and, for reasons beyond me, this game's story and characters have the most resonance among their target audience. Unless they come up with some new killer IP, and FFXIII ain't it, dimes to dollars they'll come back to FFVII in a big way.

Honestly, they're running out of remake material. After FFVI and Dragon Quest VI get their 3D update on the DS (FFVI is certainty as far as I'm concerned), what have they got left that's feasible remake material? Parasite Eve? Nope. Soul Blazer? Nope. Xenogears? If you think FFVII is never going to get made, then definitely forget this game. Vagrant Story is the most obvious candidate for an easy transition to modern consoles and expectations.

So while I totally agree that a FFVII remake would be expensive, and is probably impossible as a town for town remake, I think the game will see a serious update, albeit in a slightly different form than fanboys are probably hoping for.

 

[Godheval]

I understand what you're saying Shamus, and I agree. But there's just one problem with your analysis.

Square-Enix could simply STOP making shit-games like FFXIII (and I imagine Versus and whatever other "Crysto-fabula-nova" shit they're releasing will be equally garbage) - and focus all of THOSE resources into the FF7 remake.

They have the money, they have the resources, and they have the time - but currently all three are committed to far inferior projects. S-E has been on a publishing BINGE lately - from the utterly mediocre Just Cause 2 to the offensively awful Nier or FF13.

An FF7 remake would probably double the profits of all of those games combined, making it worth the effort.

Honestly, though, S-E's track record has been shit lately, including the bit of "retconning" they did in Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus, which makes me fear for how they'd ruin FF7 in a remake.

So I'm ambivalent.

 

[FloodOne]

snip

Besides guys, Final Fantasy 4 better.

I like the cut of your jib.

Except Final fantasy VI was the best. Don't believe me? Play it yourself and see.

Played 6, liked certain parts. Kefka is a great villain. Ending was better than 4's. Music was better in 6 too.

But for me, 4 reigns supreme. Its the one I never get tired of playing.

4 is a great one too, I have it for my GBA.

But 6 had the best story, characters, villains and world. plus, the actual game design was fantastic.

I dare any other RPG developer out there to throw the apocalypse into the middle of the game and almost completely abandon linearity for that second half. Won't happen these days, but Squaresoft had the balls to do it back on the SNES.

I miss the good old days...

OT though, I just started replaying FF VII on my PSP and I gotta say... if they just did a small scale remake for release on PSN and XBL with updated textures, character models, animations and a non hax-translation, they'd have a big money maker right there. I'd pay 20-25 dollars for that on my ps3.

 

[Brotherofwill]

Yeah well....shut up. They should make the game anyway.

Hahaha, is that the new Pokemon starter? Nice.

 

['The Eel']

This is why I hate the obsession most games have with graphics. The graphics eat up so much of the time and resources that what the developers can do in other (IMO much more important) areas of the game becomes limited.

 

[Sneaklemming]

good article, but you dodged the whole "design" area. When they make game you know, there is the whole art and design part, and it is a huge part. FF7 has alot of design assets, and probably a ton more we never got to see.

Sure motion capture and graphics are hard, but also designing what to add the graphics to is a big deal.

Add in the assets they must already have from the movie, and other games, and you really have a chunk of the work there.

I believe this is something they don't want to do unless they can do it right, and clearly they feel they can't attempt something of that scale right now.

 

[Shadowsole]

I'd be fine If they remade it like X.

I Don't want it for major grapics (though Better would be good) I want want FFVII With better Spell Checking, more Poses in Cut scense, slightly better grapics and most importantly being able to buy it and have that money go to who made it, Their are some games that i would rather buy new than borrow or buy pre-owned FF games are some of them

 

[Shadowsole]

I think it'd be cool if they went in the opposite direction and made Final Fantasy 7 with the hand-drawn 2D graphics like in Final Fantasy Tactics A2 or something, and released it on the DS.

Ah It's two big for that story wise

Though that would be awesome

 

[w1ndscar]

people dont realize that in FF7 the characters were practically made out of diamonds and boxes, and some planes. To make those models updated and on par with PS3 graphics, they'd have to go in and model every single detail as nice as they can. They have to make the clothes have realistic wrinkles, they have to make the hair look realistic, the faces have to have actual emotion. Sadly its just too much

 

[pretentiousname01]

wtb ff6 remake, plskkthx

 

[Timbydude]

Honestly, it would take just about as long as it did to make FFXIII (4 years or so). They would have to completely rebuild it from the ground up, but it definitely would not take anywhere more than 6 years to do so.

I think it goes without saying that FFXIII is a gorgeous game; at most, it would take the same amount of time to recreate VII. Yes, they would have to make a world map and more content, but there is nothing so taxing that it would take substantially longer than the most recent FF. FFXIII had a wide variety of enemies and areas as well, and it really would not take as long as they claim at all.

I totally understand if they don't want to do it just because it isn't worthwhile. In 10 or 20 years, a remake like that will be in incredibly high demand. For now, though, there's no real reason. I'm pretty sure the 40-year-development-time excuse is just being used because diehard fans won't accept "We really don't want to right now!" as an explanation.

By the way,

SUPER SNIP

This is quite an amazing post; I recommend that anyone believing Square's explanation look here.

 

[Shadowsole]

Snippy Snip

I love You

 

[oranger]

bah...we all know the obvious solution to problems like this in the future will be massive animation databases, with large "trees" of variations for small differences, like walking up stairs with different weights, heights, balances etc...you get what I mean.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

Not quite the venom spewing I came to look for from the base, but there are people TRYING.

Yeah well....shut up. They should make the game anyway.

Quoted for effort.

Frankly I can't help but chuckle at the whole scenario. Sure it will make money, but likely not enough to warrant remaking it in the first place. Not to mention all the backlash they will get for ruining the classical elements, likely from the same fans that are crying for a remake. But then again I just have exceedingly low expectations of the general gaming community.

 

[Dracosage]

I get that it would be expensive, but I still don't see why it would be more expensive than, say, making a new final fantasy game (E.G. FFXIII) from scratch, and considering it would probably sell crazy good... I'm still not seeing why not.

look at the differences between the two games, 7 had the entire overworld you could explore at just about any time, it had hundreds of characters you *could* interact with at (again) almost any point in the story, and most of them had changing dialogue.

there's a reason they've taken out the airships and running around the world map in the later games, the same reason they've bogged everyone down into the "run through this straight corridor to get to your next objective" linearity that everyone hates... exploration's expensive and time consuming.

By that argument, every future rpg (at least from square) will be as empty as FF13, because populated cities and world maps are too hard to do. It also calls into question how something like Fallout 3 is managed, what with the huge map, many interactive characters and changing dialogue.

Well Fallout 3 wasn't fabulous and pretty.

I think it's a case of FF12 being loathed by most fans. That game was enormous, especially for a JRPG. But the extremely vocal minority bashed it so much. Square just needs to stop listening to those people.

Yeah, 12 actually did the whole exploration and free world while having a stunning and living environment. That, and it was actually a good game.