Hello everybody! It's me, the guy who doesn't want things! Things like Bayonetta 2, next generation consoles, Xbox Vita and the Xbox 360 controller. I radiate disinterest and obstinacy, like an enormous tank freighted with fiery refusals. Evangelists of the future shudder as I travel throughout the land, screaming semi-coherently about buzzwords and budgets and ideas being more important than tech.
Oh I suppose it's possible that I'm just some bitter old misanthrope who hates hates hates the very thought of novelty. I almost kicked a GAME staffer the other day because they didn't have any power adaptors for the original DS. But when it comes to not wanting a Final Fantasy VII remake, I think I'm on the money, thanks. It's the remake every Final Fantasy fan has wanted since birth, Final Fantasy VII being so terribly awesome that the notion has actually projected itself back in time, and it's a dreadful prospect. Here's why.
Final Fantasy VII on PlayStation was awash with postcard views packed with all sorts of story-enabling minutiae. Midgar is one of the most elaborately constructed metropoli in the business. But that's only possible because those postcard views are, in fact, postcards - smudgy 2D backdrops populated by interactive hotspots. Fancy recreating them as fully 3D environments, dressed up in the highest resolutions money can buy? To quote Robert Shaw, we're going to need a bigger boat.
"If we were to take one of the past Final Fantasy titles and make a sequel to it, I think that would be a lot more challenging," FFXIII-2 producer Yoshinori Kitase told OXM last year. "Because when they were on PlayStation and PlayStation 2 their actual game volume was a lot bigger, kind of.
"Graphically they weren't as advanced as they are now, but there were lots of towns and worlds and cities and whatever. So if we were to recreate the same kind of game - sequel or not - with the same volume, but give it a much higher level of graphical quality, it would us take three times, four times, even ten times longer to make such a game." Square Enix could, of course, chop the original around to fit current technical and financial ceilings, but this raises problems in itself. Namely:
It's not just a question of setting aside the time and money. If Square Enix remakes Final Fantasy VII, you can bet it'll draw on lessons learned during the intervening 15 years. There will be new mechanics pitched with the trends and trappings of the post-post-modern age in mind - stuff like social media cross-over, or even (shudder) QTEs. Don't believe me? Look at what they're doing to the new PC version. Fans will, quite naturally, take umbrage at this meddling with proven material, said umbrage will translate to the internets, and people like me will have to write fractious opinion pieces about it. Is that really what you want, Final Fantasy VII fans? More opinion pieces like this one?
8 comments so far...
SidTheSloth on 10 Jul '12 said:
Agree entirely Ed, wrote this in a similar thread not so long ago:
Caligulove on 10 Jul '12 said:
Your right sir the game does not need a remake, it could however benefit from a bit of a touch up. If it was going to be re-released all I'd want is HD character models, with the same applied to spells, summons and so forth. Keep the postcard backgrounds, maybe new cut-scenes if necessary and a nice modern looking font for all the menus. All the gameplay would remain exactly the same and personally I'd release it for XBLA at 1600 msp or so.
That to me would be how it should be done and I can't see how it would cost that much or take up too much time and manpower. Nobody wants a Final Fantasy VII dressing on a recent J-RPG type game, it would be like re-writing the Bible complete with slow-mo gun fights and car chases.
terry cheyne on 10 Jul '12 said:
maybe they should make a decent final fantasy then maybe people wouldn't want a remake i mean ff10 was the last okay one
the rest since were pure brown rain especally the last 2 the last 2 weren't jrpgs they were rarpgs the ra means
retarded american rpg dumbed down for fat inbred freaks who think depth is do i want extra cheese with my burger the size of a house and a simple press a battle system and crap gameplay since the ps 1 era final fantasy has went down hill faster than a fat american falling down a hill
rant over
sonicmark on 10 Jul '12 said:
While it may be a big hit to re-release this installment, I fear the only people that it would appeal to are people who haven't played it first time round.
pauloselhombre on 10 Jul '12 said:
The problem is, this article uses the same misguided argument as Square Enix. The fact of the matter is that nobody is asking for fully 3D environments. Simple high resolution artwork used in the same pre-rendered manner as in the original would likely be enough for many people. I find it hard to believe that it would be prohibitive in terms of either expense or technology to do that, and save the full 3D HD window dressing for character and enemy models. Plus, the orchestral version of the soundtrack already partly exists.
The 'it would be impossible or too demanding' argument is frankly nonsense.
CunningSmile on 11 Jul '12 said:
Problem with that is to put in a 2D postcard background in HD would make it really obvious it was a flat 2D background. Anyone not fuelled by nostalgia wouldn't accept that, and the people who are fuelled by nostalgia are probably quite happy still playing the original.
pauloselhombre on 11 Jul '12 said:
On one hand I can see how that could be the case (I had indeed thought of that when I wrote the original post), but then on the other hand you would think that a huge international developer would be able to find a way around it. Plus, even off the top of my head I would suggest using a 3D plane for the ground, with 3D models (even completely transparent ones in some cases) along the edges of the traversable area.Then anything else could be 2D (for objects that are supposed to be closer they could easily just use 2D images on a 3D plane). In short, there are potentially numerous ways they could get around these supposed technical issues. Most of their arguments so far are just weak excuses imo.
Grummy on 12 Jul '12 said:
I'm in the 'buff up the cutscenes, give the summons some sexy cgi, improve the character models, give them voices then just leave it be' persuasion. It really doesn't need to be completely 3D rendered or for ever scrap of land to be remade, just making everything as it is looking a bit prettier and more up to date would be perfectly acceptable.
Although, with that said, I'd buy it if they just re-released it as is, package it with 8 and 9, give us a full 1000Gs worth of achievements for each game then release it in one pack for £40. I snatching that badboy up on release.