On the matter of a potential Final Fantasy VII Remake

[Petros]

The Final Fantasy VII Remake for the PlayStation 2 PlayStation Portable Playstation 3PlayStation 4... whatever. This has been one of the most discussed topics in video game history. Should Square-Enix remake what many assume is the finest game they've ever made, and possibly the finest game ever made full stop. Here is my opinion, feel free to agree or disagree. Just don't try to rape me for my opinion. Afterall that's just what it is, an opinion.

I was hugely in favour of a Final Fantasy VII remake for the PlayStation 3. But the years have gone by and not so much as a whisper for the fans from Square-Enix, I'm not sure why personally, it's a clear cash-cow. Perhaps they're worried about the backlash. In the years that passed my opinion has changed.

I think the time for a remake has come and gone. Maybe 2-3 years ago it would have worked, but it's now 2011. The market has changed, the games themselves have changed and frankly at this point Final Fantasy VII is an outdated game. I don't just mean graphically, that's an easy fix. The gameplay is outdated too. The style of the game is outdated. In a market that is filled with games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Grand Theft Auto IV, Red Dead Redemption e.t.c. Final Fantasy VII is just too linear and too slow a game to compete. It won't attract many new fans so much as alienate them and attract only the gawking fanboys, which admittedly I am one of and will buy any piece of crap they put out regardless.

Final Fantasy XIII is not a bad game, in fact it's a good game. But it's suffering from franchise fatigue, the same things that made Final Fantasy VII such a hit in 1997 have made Final Fantasy XIII a bit of a critical flop by comparison. The compelling linear story of XIII was not all that different to VII's but frankly in this market it's TOO linear. You could change it up a lot, make it more decision based and more open, change the battle system around. But then we'd get 10 million crying fanboys that it's been changed and "RUIND FOREVA!!"!11one!"

Square-Enix's golden series like so many of the early Playstation years can't seem to compete with just good visuals anymore.

Let's look at the PS1 classics; Final Fantasy VII-IX, Tomb Raider I-III, Crash Bandicoot, Gran Turismo. Where are these classics in the modern era: Final Fantasy is crashing, Tomb Raider is struggling to get itself working again, Crash is gone, Gran Turismo 5 was a delayed critical flop that offered nothing new.

Nintendo have stayed afloat for so long with Mario, Zelda, Metroid e.t.c. by offering new gameplay styles as opposed to new visuals. Has Mario or Zelda really changed all that much in 25 years, nope. But the gameplay has changed dramatically. And sadly Final Fantasy VII can't change it's gameplay dramatically without being so far removed from Final Fantasy that the gamers who wanted the game in the first place don't want it any more. And it's not like this is the reboot of a franchise, this is a remake of an already made product that many people consider perfect (though even I don't consider it perfect I do consider it the finest game ever made).

To sum up, 2-3 years ago, a Final Fantasy VII remake for the PS3 would have been an incredible success thanks to a huge graphical update, some minor gameplay tweeks and a little bit of story additions to perhaps give some more quests to do. Sadly that's not enough any more, and that makes me a sad Petros because frankly, it's the realisation of the end of a dream for me.


PS: Bet you all thought I was going to be arguing in favour of it didn't you.

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

I like how you compare Final Fantasy to Western-RPGs and and non-RPGs. O_oa Maybe to other Japanese-RPGs it would make more sense. I mean J-RPGs aren't actually role-playing-games. They're interactive movies with RPG elements like leveling and equipment upgrading. So of course they're linear, they're not meant to be open-ended like W-RPGs.

I wouldn't really care for a Final Fantasy VII remake. While I did like the game as a child, I'm not CRAZY about it like most other people are. In fact, I find some of SE's games a lot better. A remake wouldn't really do anything except appeal to fanboys/girls. I actually think the old graphics fit the so-called "charm" of the original.

There will always be someone out there who wants a remake of their favorite old-school game, however. >.>

 

[Petros]

Yes, I did compare the J-RPG Final Fantasy series to the W-RPG Dragon Age and Action W-RPG Mass Effect. The fact is, these are games in the market, they have shaped the largest video game market. J-RPG's are a dying breed at the moment due to a lack of evolution on their part that W-RPG's have managed to do.

 

[Jason]

"Gran Turismo 5 was a delayed critical flop that offered nothing new"

How?

 

[bashful crobat]

"Gran Turismo 5 was a delayed critical flop that offered nothing new"

How?

By being postponed and re-postponed for months at a time, then arriving with pretty much everything gt4 had, plus some new cars, damage and lens flare. Not to mention the awful menu/whatever it is, generally slow loading for everything and no real graphical or mechanical updates (besides making it balls easy to do anything).

People actually pre-ordered this hackneyed old runabout? lol.

Anyway, FF7 remake would probably be what they do either when they finally decide to milk their cash cow dry for good, or when they try to use it to revive the series when they realize that no-one wants their £40 same-old same-old over and over again.

 

[Jason]

Yeah it was delayed, but it wasn't really a critical flop unless you're the person that thinks any game that scores under 90 on Metacritic is a piece of shit, lol.

PS. Sorry if I'm derailing the thread from the matter at hand.

 

[Petros]

Jbrist, I've got five friends who got GT5, of them. Two them the last GT game they played was GT 4, two hadn't played one since GT 2 and the final one hasn't played since the original Gran Turismo: The Real Driving Simulator for the original PlayStation. All of them had the same response: "This is fun and all, but it's nothing new." I mean let's face facts, Metacritic isn't always right.

 

[Jason]

So you're saying not to listen to reviewers or websites like Metacritic which is a database of the reviews of a game, yet you said it's a critical flop, meaning critics ie. reviewers say it's bad... somethings up here...

 

[mawk]

the finest game they've ever made, and possibly the finest game ever made full stop.

man this had me bracing for a painful read

Honestly, I think attracting new fans isn't a huge thing on Squeenix's menu these days. Their core franchises (ignoring recent acquisitions like Deus Ex) have mostly been playing to what they know established fans will like. FFXIII seems like the sort of thing that would be excruciatingly difficult to plunge into as your first Final Fantasy; the Paradigm Shift system is honestly a pretty cool way to approach things, but it's weighed down by a lack of involving gameplay (with the exception of some later bosses you can usually get better results by just turning autobattle on) and a painful proportion of cutscenes that don't even really go anywhere for the first little while. Established fans who know what they're getting into could get their enjoyment from the story and the many callbacks, but for someone who's new to Final Fantasy or jRPGs in general I can't imagine it being a very good experience.

They're designing things simply to appeal to their existing fanbase. Characters have been popping up who appear strictly tailored to become the fan-favourite, with catchphrases shoved in your face at every turn so that people have something to fill Youtube comments with. Strictly speaking, this approach isn't doing them too badly. The Jorg Q. DeviantArt response is exactly as formulated, and there's enough buzz about FFVII from people who haven't played it in ten years, or at all, that if they did re-release it its sales would be fairly excellent. As someone who played it through it again recently, it's pretty fun for a PSX-era game, but I definitely wouldn't pay for an HD reprise.

I just think some wires have just gotten crossed over at SE's headquarters. They're losing ground pretty rapidly. FFXIII was effectively the sort of game they'd regularly give a name like "Infinite Undiscovery" and toss out as one of their backburner projects, and FFXIV (due to being a rushed and buggy rerun of FFXI with the worst interface ever conceived) was the worst performer in the entire franchise dating back to their NES days. They're going to need to hustle to regain their footing, but with how lazy they've been lately is seems likely that they'd just go ahead with the FFVII remake and rest on that. Probably hail it as a "return to form" and use the materia system for a couple more games afterward.

P.S. Jbrist you actually are derailing the thread from the matter at hand! This isn't the place to talk about whether GT5 actually flopped; it was a one-off example, and the OP would flow just fine even if it weren't there.

 

[Jason]

Yeah sorry 'bout that mawk, I'll stop talking other games now, lol.

For some ontopic stuff:

Personally, I've never finished Final Fantasy VII, I know all the events that happen, know most of the gameplay areas and stuff, but I've never actually finished it, it started off pretty boring for me, I know it was like, oh look guys we're storming this area, we're kicking names and taking ass, which okay, was good at the time, but then the whole hey I know lets turn Cloud into a girl section, for me was sort of meh, and after that part I stopped playing it for a while, came back months later and just couldn't keep interested in the game. These days, with the graphics not holding up too well (Well duh!) I can't even find the motivation to try and finish the game, I just look at it and think... this game COULD be good, it MIGHT be interesting, but damn I can't sit and look at this, I find 2D sprites beautiful but badly proportioned lego men, no thankyou. That's just me though.

I guess that, the way Square Enix are going, they sort of need to listen to the fanbase they have, and just remake the game, it'd make sense commercially since so many people are willing to buy the game, plus more people who'll jump on the Final Fantasy bandwagon too, but knowing them, they'll cock it up and either change some of the core mechanics or take stuff out or something. I reckon though that if they did actually make it, I'd end up buying it and trying again, although if I were able to make them change the game in any way, it'd be to add the Paradigm Shift battlesystem, that thing is on my top 10 list of best things to happen to Final Fantasy, it really is.

Something else Final Fantasy related that I should mention, is (Mawk reminded me of this in his post), Final Fantasy should not, in any circumstances, become an MMO, it's a storydriven series and to be fair, they don't translate well into an MMO, Final Fantasy XI was, I'll admit a good MMO at the time (I played it for a whole year, lol), but to me the storyline seemed nonexistent, basically like any other MMO out there, infact the only MMO I actually know the story to is World of Warcraft. Square Enix need to realise that just because other big companies can make a successful MMO, doesn't mean they can too, it's hard to drag a fanbase from an existing, well established MMO to a new one that's only just been released.

tl;dr

I think the only way Square Enix could dig their way out of this "hole" they're in, is to release the Final Fantasy VII Remake that the die hard fans have been wanting, although apparently it'll take them too long and I guess they'd have to ask, would the time it takes to make it, be worth it commercially.

Oh, one more thing... since the PS3 Collections have been announced and released from various publishers, I've seen on the Sony forums that people have been wanting a Final Fantasy Collection (X, X-2 and XII), I guess if the demand is there, Square Enix should really take the opportunity and do it, they need to start listening to their fans otherwise all their decisions will hurt them, just like Final Fantasy XIV has.

 

[Petros]

Duttle, what you said actually depressed me a little. Cause it's completely true. Sadly Square-Enix when making their recent games takes all the worst qualities of W-RPGs and throws them into J-RPGs and they just don't fit. Much as I hate the game, Final Fantasy X-2 had a pretty damn good battle system, as did Final Fantasy X. Sadly with XII and XIII they've basically made it a button mashing auto-battle, one character controlled fight.

 

[Jason]

Well, Final Fantasy XII was just plain bad in the battlesystem department, you put a gambit on everyone else and off you go, whereas with Final Fantasy XIII, sure, you only controlled one person, but midfight, boss battles/big enemies went through phases where you had to change your job role, meaning you had to mix and match all your characters to make the perfect team. Sadly though, it offered an auto-battle option, so you just sat there pressing X/A on it everytime it popped up.

I may sound biased here since it's my favourite Final Fantasy, but I thought Final Fantasy X pretty much nailed the battlesystem.

 

[LiquidMetal91]

I think if they combined the story of VII, with the skill system from X, the class system from X-2 and the Paradigm Shift from XIII, the would be nailing it..

However, this'll probably never happen :sad:

 

[Petros]

Also I believe if they threw in the decision making style of W-RPGs like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, it'd be even better. Possibly throw in a much wider experience, a real WORLD exploration. And bring back the world map, it's sorely missed.

 

[Jason]

No, I'm sorry, but a JRPG and WRPG should stay two seperate things, don't try to blend them, it just won't work at all.

Although I do agree on bringing a world map back, which they seem to be in the process of doing with Final Fantasy versus XIII, except it's actually to scale instead of being how they were in the previous games.

 

[Petros]

If you blend the right things, it doesn't matter if it's made in Japan or made in America, an RPG is an RPG. I'm not saying make Final Fantasy a western RPG but certain elements would help revitalise a dying franchise.

 

[Jason]

Yeah but I'm pretty sure that the majority of the Final Fantasy fanbase would love to see more of the same (The old stuff), than all these new dynamics being added in (Final Fantasy X-2 to XIII), I mean, the proof is in the pudding, saleswise I don't think they've sold bad at all, the latest ones (Except XIV), but in terms of fan reception, XII and XIII are being called two of the worst Final Fantasy games, and the only difference between them and the older ones, aside from Enix merging (Damn Enix, they're the cause of Squares downfall! D: /sarcasm), are the new systems and changes they've made to the formula.

 

[Petros]

Problem is the fanbase is slowly quitting. Like I said in my little rant about FFVII. The game style is a bit outdated by now. J-RPGs are a dying breed.

In 1997 we got two great RPGs, one JRPG one WRPG, the JRPG was Final Fantasy VII, the WRPG was Fallout. The difference was graphics and a more compelling linear story of Final Fantasy VII. So, what have WRPGs done? They've created a more linear style, but still with the decision making and open-ness of the old games. Mass Effect, Dragon Age e.t.c. If you just play through the main story they're actually quite linear, the choices are what made it all quite fun. JRPGs don't have to change their battle system, which was the main problem for all FF games following FFX. And they don't need a mission system like they added on FFX-2. But little things from the Western Style can be incorporated if they want to bring some new life to the franchise.

 

[candle]

I honestly don't understand why FF7 is such a popular game. The graphics were shit even for their time, the battle system was the same as every other j-rpg out there, and the story was so full of cliches and emo crap, and it was so convoluted they had to sit you down and remind you every half hour of what happened. Seriously, 6 and 9 were the best in the series, and its has gone steadily gone downhill since hironobu sakaguchi stepped away after 10.

Now, on the topic of a remake for the ps3, squenix reps have said its not happening because they would need to spend 5+ years on development to "do it justice."

As for square banking on their fanbase for any shit they put out in an existing franchise, just look at the new tomb raider reboot. Granted, it's one of eidos's franchises, but square owns them now.

 

[Aepriz]

FF7 needs to die, c'mon the story wasnt spectacular and the game play was a fucking huge step back compared to the esper/relics system of FF6 ..
Okay Ithink FF7 (together with 8 belongs near the shitty FF titles..)

If the would consider remaking a FF, remake 6 (4 already got remade).. All others dont need it (ex: FFX), or dont deserve it (ex: FF7, FF8)
ESPECIALLY that seriously overrated FF7..

Moral, FF6 and 4 are the only real good ones x)