When  Sony kicked off their 2015 E3 press conference with The Last Guardian, we knew something big was coming. Aside from the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter reveal, and Guerrilla’s new game Horizon: Zero Dawn, one of the biggest announcements made during the event was the Final Fantasy VII remake. Gamers have been asking for a remake for years, and after Square Enix’s troll during the PlayStation Experience last December, were beginning to think that it was never going to happen. Thankfully it is, and according to comments director Tetsuya Nomura made to Wired, it sounds like the game will be more reimagination than remake.
He notes, “In terms of taking a such an iconic game and giving it a fresh feel, we can’t go into too much detail but we’re not intending for this to become a one-to-one remake, or just the original Final Fantasy VII with better graphics.”
Though they will be changing some things around, it doesn’t sound like they’ll be removing the iconic moments you’re probably excited to see once the title officially launches. Nomura notes, “We don’t want to interfere with what makes the original title so iconic,” he continued. “There are certain plot points we don’t want to interfere with or disturb, nor will we want to change elements that fans have very big attachments to.”
“My goal with the remake is to make it apply to the current era, the current generation of players that are going to be coming into contact with or playing FFVII for the first time through this remake,” Nomura explained. “I want to make it so it’s relevant to the modern era, as well as having an element of surprise.”
Obviously modernizing a game that relied heavily on text boxes in the past will prove difficult. He elaborated,”We’re taking something that’s text based with no voice over. If we add voice over to it, that will trigger some adjustments that need to be made to accommodate for that. Then, because we’re making it in full HD, we’ll need to think about all the resources that are needed to populate the screen. We’d need to go in and see what needs adjusting in that aspect. It’s like a chain of events; ‘OK, we’re going to revamp this part, what do we need?’, and see if there are any changes that creates. As I say, we can’t go into the specifics at this point but we’ll need to revisit elements within the game to see what is appropriate.”
As for the ‘J’ in J-RPG, he stated, “This term, ‘J-RPG’, I don’t approve of it. I don’t get why it’s being referred to as such — it almost feels like people are kind of making fun of RPGs that are coming out of Japan. I think ‘well, how are they different to RPGs coming from other countries, what’s the difference?’ It feels very uncomfortable when people bring up the term JRPG.”
Meanwhile, Nomura also revealed to Famitsu (via Gematsu) that the game will not contain any new characters. “There won’t be new characters,” he stated. “As for the visual taste, we’re doing them to match today’s visuals and appear closer to reality.
Well, there you have it folks. The game is finally coming and it sounds like they’ve put a lot of hard work into making it a new experience that still remains true to the original spirit of the game.
HT: Wired
