Square Enix gives conditions for FFVII remake, re-releases on PC

[Dying Light]

I assume when they said that, they meant games in the generations after VII came out, so PS2 onwards. Some would argue that X was on par with or superior to VII but I don't see that opinion very often.

With anything before VII, why would they count? The excuse they gave was directly regarding a remake, which would be on a later console. It would be kind of silly to make a game and then years later go "oh, well [game that came out three years before] was better so I guess we should remake [later game]." They'd just remake the original game that was better then... which I believe is the treatment most of them got since they only had to be remade to better fit on handheld rather than full-fledged console games. :P And to be fair, FF7-9 already sort of got this treatment by being released on PSN which makes them playable on PSP.

As far as remakes go, I think FF7 is the next one on the "list" in that it's never had a remake unlike pretty much everything from 1-6. That's why people are expecting one so vehemently because it opens the door for remakes of everything after it, too. But Square-Enix has said in the past that it's a lot more difficult to remake FF7 with today's technology because the scale of the game would require a much bigger team/budget than they are used to putting into simple remakes. And that makes sense, but they toss huge teams on things like XIII-2 which wasn't really required by any means so their new "we will remake when something else is better" makes about as much sense to me now.

True. Their statement "we will remake when something else is better" does seem to make more sense.

I never really "expected" another FF7 release. It was re-released on the PSN, and we have Crisis Core, which incorporated some main elements of the original.

Well, I guess if they meant "FF7 remake", then it seems normal they said something like that. If they meant "remakes in general", I would seriously explode.

What big companies don't understand is that is doesn't take a huge team of people to accomplish the creation of another game. It really doesn't. But, that is just the way I see it. Look at our Game Development forum. Even, look at Minecraft! A team consisting of less than 20 people created something so big and so fun.

In another thought, FF IV did get some remakes. I just wish they would quit being so narrow-minded and actually listen to their customers. However, it's just the way it is. Every corporation is out for money first, not consumer satisfaction. Just like how EA screwed up the Command & Conquer franchise when they bought it from old Westwood Studios.

 

[Mystical Mermaid]

Despite this, I'm sure Square Enix will remake it eventually, though not any time in the near future. If one thinks about it though, only the first four FF games have truly been "remade" from the ground up, since I'm assuming what the fans want is something with PS3-quality graphics and voice acting rather than an updated rerelease of the original with a few bonus areas and items. I feel as though SE is saying this to get the fans off their backs while they wait for a more crucial point to remake one of their best-selling titles.

I've also noticed a pattern that some of these remakes adhere to. Though the first two FF games had been remade before, Origins brought about major graphical changes to put them on par with modern games, and was released in 2002 (in Japan), the seris' 15th anniversary. For the 20th anniversary, we saw an (amazing) remake of FFIV for the DS, completely rebuilding the game in 3D, and adding in voiced cutscenes. I'm aware that several other games have been remade/ported between these (including my personal favorite FFVI) but these are among the most significant in updates from the original. With the 25th anniversary upon us, a remake of FFIII has been confirmed with even more improvements than the 2006 DS release. Perhaps the folks at Square Enix are waiting for a more "epic" anniversary to release their first 3D title, but I'm sure it will come upon us eventually.

 

[NatureKeeper]

Despite this, I'm sure Square Enix will remake it eventually, though not any time in the near future. If one thinks about it though, only the first four FF games have truly been "remade" from the ground up, since I'm assuming what the fans want is something with PS3-quality graphics and voice acting rather than an updated rerelease of the original with a few bonus areas and items. I feel as though SE is saying this to get the fans off their backs while they wait for a more crucial point to remake one of their best-selling titles.

I've also noticed a pattern that some of these remakes adhere to. Though the first two FF games had been remade before, Origins brought about major graphical changes to put them on par with modern games, and was released in 2002 (in Japan), the seris' 15th anniversary. For the 20th anniversary, we saw an (amazing) remake of FFIV for the DS, completely rebuilding the game in 3D, and adding in voiced cutscenes. I'm aware that several other games have been remade/ported between these (including my personal favorite FFVI) but these are among the most significant in updates from the original. With the 25th anniversary upon us, a remake of FFIII has been confirmed with even more improvements than the 2006 DS release. Perhaps the folks at Square Enix are waiting for a more "epic" anniversary to release their first 3D title, but I'm sure it will come upon us eventually.

Yeah, around the 7777th anniversary, maybe. It's hard to know with Square Enix.

 

[Cherrim]

What big companies don't understand is that is doesn't take a huge team of people to accomplish the creation of another game. It really doesn't. But, that is just the way I see it. Look at our Game Development forum. Even, look at Minecraft! A team consisting of less than 20 people created something so big and so fun.

Except... for AAA titles like Final Fantasy, you do need big teams. Minecraft is successful, yes, but it is a very simple game and very much unfinished, too. The complexity in it really comes from the community moreso than the developers. I don't think you can necessarily compare it to traditional console games either because the development cycle is so different. Minecraft was in open alpha/beta for years and, honestly, their "1.0" doesn't feel any different and many people have just assumed that they only entered 1.0 to make investors more comfortable. If you don't do any of the extra stuff in Minecraft--if you only go through to The End and beat the game--it would probably only take you like 6-10 hours of playing, depending on how lucky you are with the terrain generation.

Other indie games are probably a lot more comparable to the Final Fantasies production-wise but most indie RPGs will really only take you ~15 hours of playtime tops whereas usually FF7 is at least 60 hours, if not more. In order to make it look good (since Final Fantasy typically goes for semi-realism over stylized art direction), sound good, play well, and so on, your team ends up expanding exponentially in order to fit everything in. A small team might be able to handle that on older console engines but with today's technology, it really does take a lot of people in order to make full use of a console's power for their game and people would accept no less with an FF7 remake. Any huge title nowadays requires a large team.

 

[Atomic Pirate]

SE needs to do two things, ideally:

1. Give up on MMOs.
2. Focus on a complex story. Complex does not mean introducing 101 expressions and terms which have no meaning, it needs some twists and turns and characters which can show some emotion and likeability.

FF7 would no doubt bring in a lot of money for SE, so it might actually be a better idea to do that - then build a better one off the profits.

Giving up on MMOs is definitely necessary, not just for SE, but for many companies. Seriously, not every game needs to be an MMO. Heck, even the next Dragon Quest is an MMO (which is a terrible decision, in my opinion). Honestly, I'm sick of online games in general, be it Minecraft or Call of Duty. Although I own both, I rarely play either.

I definitely agree with the focus on story. However, I think a tougher difficulty level is also really important. Nowadays, you can breeze through any Final Fantasy game with ease. But as for the story, I think that the golden example of a good story is FFVI. That game had not only a good story, but also likeable characters, which in my opinion are a key point in a good story. FFVII had a decent story, but Cloud was whiny, Aeris was ditzy, and Sephiroth was simply a jerk. None of the characters were that likeable at all. However, in FFVI, you have the roguish Locke, the womanizing Edgar, and so on and so forth.

 

[Lt. Col. Fantastic]

^This guy.

I always wondered why I liked tge story of FFVII but not the actual game. Its the characters. It makes so much sense now. Because I love Crisis Core, and its because we have Zack, totally likeable, Sephiroth being friendly (to an extent), Angeal and Genisis, and even Lazard and Cissnei were likeable.
Sorry, had to share my epiphamy.

But yeah, on topic, it coming out on the PC again isn't really a big deal, just ways to get money and try to convince people that they are thinking of the fans. Because seriously, a lot of people have torrented it, and the rerelease on pc probably wont have anything extra except acheivements, which nobody cares about. (Right? I don't anyway)

 

[NatureKeeper]

^This guy.

I always wondered why I liked tge story of FFVII but not the actual game. Its the characters. It makes so much sense now. Because I love Crisis Core, and its because we have Zack, totally likeable, Sephiroth being friendly (to an extent), Angeal and Genisis, and even Lazard and Cissnei were likeable.
Sorry, had to share my epiphamy.

But yeah, on topic, it coming out on the PC again isn't really a big deal, just ways to get money and try to convince people that they are thinking of the fans. Because seriously, a lot of people have torrented it, and the rerelease on pc probably wont have anything extra except acheivements, which nobody cares about. (Right? I don't anyway)

No, it is a big deal. Everyone is complaining about how it's mere luck if Final Fantasy VII runs on your computer or not, and a lot of people cannot get the game to work properly. And the copies of the game are getting scarce, with some new fans wanting to try the game out (myself included). The Achievements are gimmicks- I will just play the game the way I want. The Cloud Saves could be nifty. The Character Booster, though, I don't even get the point of it. Final Fantasy VII and not-challenging don't get along too well.

Anyway, on-topic: By the looks of it, we aren't getting a FFVII remake, because SE doesn't understand what the fans what, and thus the quality is going down. Don't they know if they actually remake Final Fantasy VII, it's good advertising for the newer era of Transformers Final Fantasy?

I am pissed off they remade Final Fantasy X but not VII, to be frank. Why not build an engine for VII, VIII, IX? They are in the queue for quite a while now. And whatever is this "The franchise would be done with" horsecrap? For the sake of all that's holy...

 

[Cherrim]

Final Fantasy X isn't really getting a remake... I thought they were pretty much porting it and giving it some updated textures? On the whole, it'll still be running on the same engine, they're just improving it slightly here and there and tossing it on a new console.

:/ "Remake" generally signifies building the game from the ground-up which they would have to do for Final Fantasy in order to make graphical updates that everyone fully expects from the eventual remake. Even porting those games to a new engine would be difficult because building an engine legitimately takes a very long time. Besides, they have a perfectly good engine with XIII (crystal engine, iirc?): the engine is one of the biggest parts but it's by no means the only part. If all they had to do was build the engine and toss things into it to make the game, we'd have seen tons of remakes for this gen already. It's much more complicated than that.

Making a game on the same scale as VII-IX is a really big undertaking. I understand why they haven't really assigned any teams to it because it could potentially suck up way too much money and take so long that it's not worth it which, to my knowledge, is the excuse they've thrown at us throughout this whole generation. Square-Enix knows full well that fans really, really want a VII remake and this is the company that's remade FFI like 8 times in the past decade. They have nothing against remakes so I feel that if they haven't announced a VII remake yet, there's a good reason for it and that reason is probably money-related.

 

[Dying Light]

I stand corrected on my previous statement.

However, perhaps the money-related problem is a fault of their own. I wouldn't put it past them.

Building an engine, is no doubt, hard. I have done it myself but haven't even come close to SE's Crystal Tools (formerly, White Engine before version 1.1). Understandable, they could easily remake FF7 using said engine, but therein lies the conflict. Obviously, I don't know enough to make a big enough report on the matter, but I really wonder if they are facing some... difficulties?

 

[Cherrim]

Square-Enix was reported to be really flailing either last year or the year before, iirc. I haven't heard anything about it since, but I also haven't been paying much attention. I think they lost a lot of money on FFIV which kind of tanked. I know some people play it but it's not a big contender in the current MMO rankings, really, and they spent a lot of time/money on it.

So you're right, they're probably having difficulties there. :/ I imagine they really want to make a VII remake so that they can recoup losses with it (because you know everyone would buy it) but maybe they just can't justify putting active teams on something that will supposedly take so long since it means nothing else good will come out in the mean time. If you look at it that way, the statement that triggered this thread makes a lot of sense. If they make a game that surpasses VII, one can assume it would sell amazingly well too which would give them a bit of a buffer with which to go into development for a game like VII.

 

[NatureKeeper]

Square-Enix was reported to be really flailing either last year or the year before, iirc. I haven't heard anything about it since, but I also haven't been paying much attention. I think they lost a lot of money on FFIV which kind of tanked. I know some people play it but it's not a big contender in the current MMO rankings, really, and they spent a lot of time/money on it.

So you're right, they're probably having difficulties there. :/ I imagine they really want to make a VII remake so that they can recoup losses with it (because you know everyone would buy it) but maybe they just can't justify putting active teams on something that will supposedly take so long since it means nothing else good will come out in the mean time. If you look at it that way, the statement that triggered this thread makes a lot of sense. If they make a game that surpasses VII, one can assume it would sell amazingly well too which would give them a bit of a buffer with which to go into development for a game like VII.

...And so, they continue working on FFXIII-3, wasting their money on a game that won't sell all that well?

 

[Mana1]

...And so, they continue working on FFXIII-3, wasting their money on a game that won't sell all that well?

As far as I know XIII-3 was a misguided rumour started because of the apparent loose ending of XIII-2, which was misinterpreted. (...?)

You should really consider that 13 did sell well, and that SE's main audience is Japanese, where they do a hell of a lot better than in the US or Europe.

 

[Mystical Mermaid]

This is just my opinion, but the ending of FFXIII-2 was really looking for a sequel, where things will hopefully be rectified into a "happy" ending. FFXIII and its sequel were both very sucessful in Japan, so this is likely to happen, though whether it comes stateside is up in the air. After all, SE's other major franchise Dragon Quest is even more popular than FF in Japan, yet until recently only a handful of titles saw international releases.

I'd also say that if FFVII does get rebuilt from the ground up (since it seems the PC release will just be a port with enhancements), it will most likely be released on the handheld PSP Vita or whatever is current when they decide to do it, as this is the direction SE's been going with their remakes in general rather than on consoles. For now, though, it seems they want to make Cloud and his friends look as kawaii as possible and play rythym and board games.

 

[Archer]

As far as I know XIII-3 was a misguided rumour started because of the apparent loose ending of XIII-2, which was misinterpreted. (...?)

You should really consider that 13 did sell well, and that SE's main audience is Japanese, where they do a hell of a lot better than in the US or Europe.

Food for thought: we do need adequate sales figures in the Western World, because there are still localisation costs. If a few games were to do badly here (english-speaking countries), then they're going to be hesitant to spend the same amount of money on localisation. That means either lower-quality or no localisation, especially for smaller niche products and spinoffs.

While I haven't played FF:XIII yet, I'd say that it's not impossible to make another VII. Firstly, they just need to slow down on the complex combat and levelling systems - even if they reel them back in to FFX Turn-based or ATB (stop trying to fit the market's trends - you're Square Enix. You DEFINE the genre.) and force characters back into a more job-based setup. This makes each one feel more unique. Basically, I think they should fix what people didn't like about FFX. :D

 

[TRIFORCE89]

I don't think they're judging sales or quality. Just popularity.

I haven't played any FF games, but I was always under the impression that IV and VI were better than VII.

The Zelda team holds OoT on this platform. It is sacred and holy and they work to surpass it and never do. They say. But they, there has been several games better than OoT, but they weren't as popular and don't have the same lasting impact. Same thing here with FF.

So a remake will probably never happen through that justification. Only ports, rereleases, and enhanced ports. Just like with OoT.

 

[Wings Don't Cry]

I've been reading the posts in this thread and don't know why you all think FFV and FFVI have been remade many times because they have only been ported, they have never been remade. Just saying.

On the topic of remaking FFVII though, I would much rather see a FFV remake just because I rather go around in a cape and throwing 1000 needles in random monsters than watch one guy get seizures through the course of 2 discs. I honestly don't mind if they remake Final Fantasies, I would certainly like them to be remade but I'm not going to get down on my knees every night and pray for one. I don't actually care about the order they remake them in either as long as FFVIII is all the way at the end of that list.

Regarding the popularity of FFVII, I have made some observations about it. By the way this is purely from the viewpoint of someone living in New Zealand so I'm not too sure about the rest of the world. Anyway pretty much everyone I know +/- 7 years of my age considers themselves FFVII fans. There's like over 2000 people at my school and I can guarantee 1800 of them are FFVII "fans". Really of that 1800 only like 20 of them have actually played FFVII, the rest played Crisis Core, Kingdom Hearts or watched Advent Children. The vast majority of them won't even know who Aeris is if I mention her. These people are fans of FFVII just because they have anime obsessions with Cloud, Zack, Vincent or Sephiroth. Of all the people I know that have played the game, they all pretty much agree that FFVII is easily one of the top Final Fantasies but definitely not the best.
Please try to remember that I only made these observations in my country and I have no idea whre the popularity of FFVII spawns from around the rest of the world.

 

[Skitty1]

*SHOCKED FACE ACTIVATE* Another Final Fantasy game?! who could have seen this coming?!!!!

 

[Oryx]

I've been reading the posts in this thread and don't know why you all think FFV and FFVI have been remade many times because they have only been ported, they have never been remade. Just saying.

On the topic of remaking FFVII though, I would much rather see a FFV remake just because I rather go around in a cape and throwing 1000 needles in random monsters than watch one guy get seizures through the course of 2 discs. I honestly don't mind if they remake Final Fantasies, I would certainly like them to be remade but I'm not going to get down on my knees every night and pray for one. I don't actually care about the order they remake them in either as long as FFVIII is all the way at the end of that list.

Regarding the popularity of FFVII, I have made some observations about it. By the way this is purely from the viewpoint of someone living in New Zealand so I'm not too sure about the rest of the world. Anyway pretty much everyone I know +/- 7 years of my age considers themselves FFVII fans. There's like over 2000 people at my school and I can guarantee 1800 of them are FFVII "fans". Really of that 1800 only like 20 of them have actually played FFVII, the rest played Crisis Core, Kingdom Hearts or watched Advent Children. The vast majority of them won't even know who Aeris is if I mention her. These people are fans of FFVII just because they have anime obsessions with Cloud, Zack, Vincent or Sephiroth. Of all the people I know that have played the game, they all pretty much agree that FFVII is easily one of the top Final Fantasies but definitely not the best.
Please try to remember that I only made these observations in my country and I have no idea whre the popularity of FFVII spawns from around the rest of the world.

I think what I can get from this, which I agree with, is that Final Fantasy VII is more of a part of culture than a game that people love as a game. It's kind of like saying "I love Star Wars", whether or not you've sat down and watched them all, because there's so much about them online and jokes and it's so ingrained into the culture of nerds that it's expected for you to like Star Wars and you can get the gist of it without ever watching the movies.

I personally don't have an issue with them not remaking FFVII because I always enjoyed it for the nostalgia. When people ask me if it's a good game, I always tell them that I like it but I can't separate my nostalgia bias from my objective opinion of the game so they should take it with a grain of salt. XD; I'd lose most of the nostalgia if they remade it and did anything more than update the graphics, which they would certainly do, so ports and rereleases are fine with me.

 

[Skitty1]

Personally I'm getting sick of Final Fantasy… it reminds me of how Nintendo keeps on rising poor Mario from the dead. Well I can't blame them Mario is the cash cow… anyway back to Final Fantasy – there are way too many games (spin-off's). If anything this remake is just going to be another money grab op. because there are plenty of diehard fans who are willing to buy ANY game related to FF.

 

[TRIFORCE89]

Personally I'm getting sick of Final Fantasy… it reminds me of how Nintendo keeps on rising poor Mario from the dead. Well I can't blame them Mario is the cash cow… anyway back to Final Fantasy – there are way too many games (spin-off's). If anything this remake is just going to be another money grab op. because there are plenty of diehard fans who are willing to buy ANY game related to FF.

Could remind you of any franchise really. How about yearly Assassin's Creeds?

I wouldn't "blame" them, like you said. But, there's also nothing to blame them for. Their primary function is to release a game that will sell. It isn't in there interest to do otherwise