Final Fantasy XIII-2 producer Yoshinori Kitase has addressed the never-ending debate about a Final Fantasy VII remake, stating that he'd be too tempted to make huge changes to the game. He acknowledged, however, that such a thing could anger devoted fans, leading to a lose/lose situation.
"I would be really tempted to delete things and add new elements, new systems or whatever because if we were to make exactly the same thing now, it’d be like a repeat," he explained. "... So I’d be really interested in rearranging games or reshaping games into something slightly different even though it’s supposed to be the same game. But if we did that, the fans might be disappointed or ‘this is not what I was expecting’ so in that sense maybe some might say that it’s better to let memory be memory.
"... Those slightly negative features and bits, for some of the really enthusiastic fans of these titles, that gives the game extra flavor or personality or whatever. So maybe they would rather we didn’t do anything about it and we just leave it in as it is. It’s very difficult to decide what we should we keep in and what we should take out."
Fancy that, a Square Enix employee who wants to leave something the way it is! I actually really do love Kitase's attitude here, especially as I think FFVII really shouldn't be remade. Squenix did a bad enough job with all the prequels and extra crap. Let's just leave it alone.
"If I remade Final Fantasy VII, I'd be tempted to delete things" [OXM]
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Contest:
5:15 PM on 11.28.2011 | 
NO REMAKE! MAKE EVERYONE PAY BY BUYING THE PS1 classic! Retro Gamers Unite! loool
sounds like a good vita or psn title.
plus, all they have to do w/FFVII is to just make it prettier. thats all we want. :)
They'll milk it.
As much as I love FF7, Crisis Core was the only subsequent FF7 game that I liked, and Advent Children stands as one of the greatest disappointments of my entertainment life. DoC was even worse, somehow.
It's an impossible thing to remake. But here's what you can do. make a HD version with updated cg cutscenes, perhaps experiment with putting in new ideas, I stress that these things should be optional, and how about playing around with dlc, I think people would pay to have sepiroth on their team.
And there you go, you will get a few million from that, and every one's happy. Sadly this common sense isn't present at square enix.
particularly putting more Zack's Flashback, more Vincent Valentine scenes and relationship with Lucrecia, other members that had escape the Before Crisis incident, Genesis appearance(well they could just add files and some scenes same with Angeal)
all in all they HAVE to connect all these in the Remake if they plan to.
otherwise the sequels they made would have been for nothing.
One of the main reasons I haven't beaten the game since 1997 is the talking scenes, there has to be a better way to tell Cloud's back story than those lengthy unskippable segments.
No one complains about "too samey" in a REMAKE. That's exactly what fans want. Update the visuals and keep the gameplay exactly the same (maybe minus the fixed camera angles). It's not like Square hasn't done the same thing plenty of times in the past.
Heck, look at the DS remakes of FFIII and IV. Do that with FFXIII graphics = profit.
The problem here is that it reveals what Kitase *really* wants to do is totally re-engineer FFVII into some horrible new game with a famous nostalgic name slapped on it. That's what his complaint boils down to. He knows that there would be a backlash to his evil machinations, and so he's moaning about it in advance.
"Squenix did a bad enough job with all the prequels and extra crap. Let's just leave it alone. "
Let's break it down, crisis core is a great game, if anything for all the nitpickers, it was great fan service for FF VII fans. As for before crisis no one in the states has played it so nobody should even comment on it unless it contains "bring this over here". Dirge of Cerberus has a failed combat system, but Vincents story is an entertaining one to say the least. And last but not least, advent children, which just made Cloud more "emo" than he needed to be, but provided some great action sequences and well a continuation to the story, and in my book I'm grateful for the later part, because I love the universe of VII.
Overall, just like Halo (prior to Halo 4, 5, 6 announcement), people blow the whole "cash cow" thing out of proportion.
And who needs a remake when you have a re-release? If you don't like the game enough to get past the dated graphics (Which I've always fine with anyways.), I wish you the best of luck with a remake. Plus it's always been hip to hate on remakes, so you wouldn't even be able to express you liked the remake anyways, without loosing some hip cred anyways.
I know what was bad about Crisis Core: absolutely nothing! :P
My general point stands however.
@Jazzpanda
They could, and personally that's how I would like it too. But, from this article he seems to think "What's the point?" if it's still the same as the original. Either that or he doesn't trust himself to only update the graphics.
and that's FFVIII.
not only i want to see the game in FFFXIII graphics but they could improve the combat system by either scrapping it and turning it into a traditional FF game.
or imporve it even more by adding more options and removing the draw tactic.
plus who doesn't want to see Squall Lionheart move in HD O____O
Give me a well designed battle system like Persona 4.
It was magical when I was a kid, awesome when I was a teenager and now as an adult, I can see that it is no longer for me. I am sure that it is Magical for a lot of people out there but 12 and 13 had absolutely no appeal to me and it is no surprise hearing someone from those development teams stating that they have no interest in FF7.
He'd much rather make games that play themselves and require minimal input from the controller. Oh well, I am having a good time with all of the JRPGS that I ignored back when I was busy with all awesome square titles.
In short, If people are enjoying square's glorified DVD menus, fuck it, they are not the only game in town.
I wouldn't mind that. Loved that game, though I see it's flaws. All I ever did was spam summons by the time I reached the 4th disc. The battle system could use some tweaking.
LEAVE CLOUD ALONE.
NO FUCKING REMAKE.
THEY WILL RUIN IT.
NO FUCKING REMAKE.
THE GAME IS ON PSN, IT IS BEYOND FINE. THE BACKGROUNDS ARE PRE-RENDERED AND STILL BEAUTIFUL.
NO FUCKING REMAKE.
THE TALENT THAT MADE FF7 IS LONG GONE.
NO FUCKING REMAKE.
This topic is so constantly annoying... and I hope I am making myself perfectly clear.
Anybody who even poses the question of whether FF7 should be remade when even Kitase says it's not a good idea... is insane. They have damaged FF7 enough by now.
They also tried to basically replicate FF7 as much as possible with FF13, the opening section basically had all of the elements of FF7's bombing run. Think of FF13 as a new age FF7.
The only thing they should do with FF7 is basically rob its 'Materia System' for their new games, that combat/customization system is boss and far superior to the automated silliness they peddle now.
Do a HD Remake ala Halo anniversary
Then again I don't see the need for a remake. It holds up as well as any game from that period, which is better than SNES or NES despite the hipster move towards supposed retro. I still love booting up FF 7 or 9 and enjoying myself. They aren't supposed to keep up with modern design because they aren't modern. 13 sucked hard. If that's any indication of what a remake would be, get fucked. Even Versus is looking like garbage. Everyone is hyped for that when they've released what, 2 trailers? I can promise the world too, doesn't mean I can give it.
I don't think the battle system is that outdated. They have tried so many different systems over the years that quite frankly the active time battles would be a huge breath of fresh air.
More over, many FF games have been re-released on different systems already. Each game 1-6 has been redone endlessly. The big draw to these remakes? NEW FUCKING GRAPHICS. So don't give me this bullshit that they can't remake 7 and up the same way.
Even if he's saying he doesn't want to remake it because he wants to leave it alone, its the fact that he's saying that he wants to leave it alone because he couldn't approach it without changing things other then the graphics that becomes the glaring problem I'm talking about.
The whole project -if it ever were to become a project- would surely be stopped and started multiple times over the course of development because they'd come across something rather stupid and small that needs -for whatever oddball reason- months devoted to them deciding if they should change it or keep it. But this guy's statement itself makes it clear enough what they should do: Leave it in because people will bitch if its changed. And its really as simple as that.
It'd be like Lucas messing with Star Wars -Theres no reason to fuck with it, but yet there he is adding in Ewok blinks.