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Square Enix has angered fans of the Final Fantasy series by announcing that the Final Fantasy VII Remake will be released in episodic installments (archive.is):
It seems that Square Enix has unleashed a torrent of anger over the episodic nature [archive.is] of Final Fantasy VII Remake, so much so that producer Yoshinori Kitase has had to step in.
In a new blog post over on their site, Kitase has done his best to give his take on the situation. As he says, "One thing that we wanted to be clear about during this weekend to accompany the new trailer was the scale of this project. We wanted to tell you this now and not in the future so that you'd share our vision for what we want to deliver. The biggest reason why we haven't done a remake until now is because it's a massive undertaking to reconstruct Final Fantasy VII from the ground up with the current technology. Producing a proper HD remake of Final Fantasy VII that maintains the same feeling of density of the original would result in a volume of content that couldn't possibly fit into one installment."
"We've seen everyone's comments and reactions to the news that Final Fantasy VII Remake will be a multi-part series and many have speculated correctly as to the reason why we have made this decision. If we were to try to fit everything from the original into one remake installment, we would have to cut various parts and create a condensed version of Final Fantasy VII. We knew none of you would have wanted that."
The thing here though is that this is not really a remake of the original PSone game, this is a whole new and different game. In that sense, building the old game's narrative and setting would indeed become a huge undertaking with this new functional approach.
The argument here is that nobody asked Square Enix to change the game like this in the first place.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday December 15 2015, @05:26AM
It was a quantum leap in graphics and story, and as a result, had more impact of the memories of people who want to relive it.
I might be showing my age here, but I felt the same way about Final Fantasy IV (FFII in the US).
The US audience didn't see all of the intermediate sequels, we got FFI, then the Japanese FFIV packaged as FFII, so there was a quantum leap there (Mode 7 in the intro? No way!). Then we got the Japanese FFVI packaged as FFIII, so it was a quantum leap with size and story (more than graphics).
If there's any FF7 game which deserves recognition, it's the critically maligned FF7: Dirge of Cerebus -- A fucking Final Fantasy third-person(with first-person aiming) shooter starring Vincent Valentine and featuring the usual cast, with a great "comic relief" stage played as Cait Sith like a Metal Gear Solid sneaking mission.
I never understood why FF7:DoC was so critically maligned, it was a welcome departure but with all the great design, atmosphere, and soundtrack of FF games.
8 was the last decent Final Fantasy in spite of its teenage melodrama and "Dick and Jane" life-lessons. All others are crap and will forever be crap. Bahaha.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2015, @05:04PM
8 was the last decent Final Fantasy in spite of its teenage melodrama and "Dick and Jane" life-lessons. All others are crap and will forever be crap.
I'd skip 8 in favor of 9. The idea of Squall dying is an interesting take on the story (www.squallsdead.com).