According to Final Fantasy XIII Producer Yoshinori Kitase, there are actual reasons why Final Fantasy VII hasn’t been remade other than “because Square-Enix hates money.”
Longtime readers of The Escapist may have noticed my fondness for lengthy recaps when news posts have important backstories, but in this case, the recap doesn’t need to be lengthy at all: Obsessed Final Fantasy VII fanboys have been slavering for a modern remake for years, and despite teasing from Square-Enix, the official word is “No, it’s not happening right now, stop asking.”
But why isn’t it happening? A remake of Final Fantasy VII would easily sell millions of copies worldwide, and the story, characters, and gameplay mechanics all already exist – does Square-Enix just hate the thought of millions of fanboy dollars flooding its coffers? In the latest issue of Ultimania, FF13 producer Yoshinori Kitase admitted that there were technical difficulties presenting themselves that made a remake unlikely.
Intriguingly enough, the FF7 info came to light in reference to the studio’s newest game. In answering questions about the lack of traditional towns and the overall linearity of Final Fantasy XIII, the game’s director Motomu Toriyama said that part of it was due to the difficulty of working in such a demanding graphical environment. “[A non-stop story] is one of the reasons, but more importantly, it is a result of considering HD graphics will be the mainstream. Considering the amount of work to make graphics that deserve HD, it is hard to make towns in the conventional style.”
Kitase echoed those statements, saying that the same problem was one of the reasons Squeenix wasn’t working on a remake of its groundbreaking PS1 title. “This issue is related to whether a Final Fantasy 7 remake will happen or not. It is very hard to make games on PlayStation 3 in the same style as the games in that era had. Making graphics will take enormous time.”
I’m not quite sure I buy it, seeing as how the studio did a decent job with the infamous 2006 tech demo – is he just saying that it would be too hard to render environments and graphics in modern technology, while still being faithful to the original game in a way that won’t send the diehard fans into a frothing rage of “They changed it, now it sucks!”?
Either way, it would be nice if someone made a magical device that tracked down anyone in the world who asked or otherwise whined about a Final Fantasy VII remake and kicked them in the groin. Enough is enough already: Can we please stop talking about it now?
(Via Videogamer)
