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Kitase on FFVII Remake:"You must believe me when I say it would take a lot to happen"

RedSwirl

Junior Member
I don't really care about playing an FF7 remake myself, but they would have been better off making that game than XIII-2 and XIII-3.

Yeah. An FFVII remake would probably be possible with the combined budgets SE spent on XIII-2 and LR, and it would actually have a chance of selling at least as much as both of those games combined.
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
As for "HD towns," I think Square proved they can do that in XIII-2 (at least that's what I can tell from the demo. That isn't the only town in the whole game is it?). From what I've seen of FFVII, keep the abstract proportions on the world map, but make towns & dungeons of a similar fidelity to XIII-2 (or XV if it's a PS4 game). I think Ni No Kuni proves it is possible to make an RPG of a scale similar to the classics with modern graphics. I guess the amount of audio might be a factor if SE thinks it needs to voice every single line of dialogue (which, again, wasn't the case with XIII-2).

Really the only major thing stopping this from happening right now is other Final Fantasy games and Kingdom Hearts III. It would definitely take the production budget and time of a standard full FF game, but the sales would probably justify it.
 

Faiz

Member
There was a time when I would have said, "It doesn't matter what it would take. Do it. It will be worthwhile."

I'm not so sure that's the case anymore.
 
Their new stuff is garbage, remake the old stuff

That would produce novels' worth of words about how SE has become the shining symbol of stagnancy and absolute lack of future vision.

I'd honestly prefer to have something new, fresh, and perhaps very experimental even if it's laden with a catalogue's worth of faults than just see the old, familiar games meticulously remade. But that's probably because I'm generally open to change.
 
I wouldn't mind seeing a remake of FFVII but I don't trust SE enough anymore to not fuck it up somehow. It's really sad that opinions have come to that. :/
 

Beth Cyra

Member
Yeah. An FFVII remake would probably be possible with the combined budgets SE spent on XIII-2 and LR, and it would actually have a chance of selling at least as much as both of those games combined.
I very much doubt it. Both games where made on rather small budgets with heavy out sourcing and extreme recycling.

Even combined I don't think they would get anywhere close to a game from the ground up which is what VIIR would need to be.
 

RPGCrazied

Member
Maybe people wouldn't be begging them about it if they hadn't shown off that PS3 tech demo.

Its like they were asking for it.
 

FDBK

Member
The older that Final Fantasy VII gets, the better it was.....

A FFVII remake needs to have the right ingredients to work well for both Square Enix and the FF fanbase. Same can be said for a VII-2.

Personally, I'd love to re-live the moments during my first playthrough of it back in the late 90's. I don't want to play a game based on the name for its franchise's sake. I want lush environments, deep story, memorable characters, etc.

It may have to be like FFXIII, but it will need to be "like FFXIII on steroids." No exceptions. And I agree with Kitase.
 

kswiston

Member
Switching characters to a realistic proportion means that world traversal has to be handled differently. FFXII takes place within a country, FFVII spans the globe.

That doesn't make really FFVII bigger though. You can fly across the entire globe in about 45 seconds using the highwind.

Skyrim spans an entire country, but in reality only covers about 40 square kilometers. If I made a game set entirely in a city the size of New York, but made the in game scale 1:1, is my game world smaller despite the fact that NYC is like 300 square kilometers?
 

Biker19

Banned
Final Fantasy VII is one of those games that desperately needs a remake.

Game is fun to play, but it's aged horribly.
 

Go_Ly_Dow

Member
After reading and reflecting on this thread it's probably for the best they never make the game

Remaking the game in AAA form and not cutting anything would result in a massive undertaking, probably 5 years plus and halt other projects.

Remaking the game in mid-tier form would leave a ton of people unsatisfied despite what people in here say.

Also XV may create demand for a remake to be an action game over turn based.

Messy business that they should leave alone in my opinion.
 

Vazra

irresponsible vagina leak
"This tallies with comments Kitase made in 2010, when he said in order to remake Final Fantasy 7 to the quality of Final Fantasy 13 it would take three or four times longer than it took to develop the divisive PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game."

Oh lord LOL
 

gatti-man

Member
After reading and reflecting on this thread it's probably for the best they never make the game

Remaking the game in AAA form and not cutting anything would result in a massive undertaking, probably 5 years plus and halt other projects.

Remaking the game in mid-tier form would leave a ton of people unsatisfied despite what people in here say.

Also XV may create demand for a remake to be an action game over turn based.

Messy business that they should leave alone in my opinion.

A action ff7 would be sweet
 

Flowmoney

Member
I bet Square Enix don't want to show some of things Cloud did in HD.They would have to rewrite story and certain things in a remake.
 
Look, seriously. Kitase is excellent. I know a lot of us like to hate on him right now for being the irrational defender of Toriyama and producer of the FFXIII series.

But he directed Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6, Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 8, and Final Fantasy 10. Depending on who you ask, one of these titles is a gamer's RPG or at least one of them.

It's as if he feels like he must find his replacement. I wish he would stop being so concerned with that. Go back to directing original titles. That's what I think we really want--not just for him to spend him whole time remaking FF7.
 

Fusebox

Banned
As much as I love FFVII and would happily play a remake in any form I'm not really that thirsty for a remake yet because the original has aged so well, especially on the Vita screen.
 

A-V-B

Member
Absolutely fair points. but you've really only addressed the sound and visuals, which most would be expecting SE to upgrade, and the least problematic areas for any possible remake.

I'm not saying they can't deliver a visual and audio update that I would 100% be happy with. It's the gameplay that's the minefield. Would today's mainstream be happy with the same exact mechanics? The same submarine/chocobo/motorcycle minigames with a lick of paint?

I remember the submarine game being very fun. And really, those minigames don't take a lot of time and aren't much of a far cry from the cheap and entertaining experiences you might find on Xbox Arcade or mobile phones. People still play and enjoy them, and I don't see why they should stop, especially when the mini-games aren't even a huge part of the experience unless you make them. I know some people who are still trying to breed golden chocobos. Slight updates in gameplay at the most. Updates in presentation though? Yeah, almost certainly. But along the lines of the original, not trying to mould it to something that exists from some other game. "If they had our resources back then, what would they have done?"

But even beyond the mini-games, would people find playing FFVII fun? I think so. You'd make some tweaks, perhaps, make it a little faster in presentation and game time. But that's what you test concepts for. And Square has certainly been making steps in the way of RPG combat gameplay, so if there's nothing you can learn from that, you're already making bad steps in the remake. Considering the kind of chemistry you'd have in place before work could even begin, I doubt it would be a serious problem. You'd use the same way of thinking as you do for visuals and audios. You ask very important questions, and look at them from a viewpoint that's very intelligent in regards to considering the emotional and ludic effect of the original game in all of its aspects, translating them instead of replacing them.

That goes for the story as well. I wouldn't touch Midgar much. People love Midgar. Even Don Corneo. That in particular is supposed to be a fun and light-hearted sequence in the midst of a really run-down, shitty time in the heroes' lives where they don't really know if what they're doing is right or wrong. You can't take the exact same approach as the original, perhaps. That approach might not work and that's certainly a possibility, but at the same time you can't just strip out the humor. It's bad for the audience, and it's bad for the performers. And Advent Children had absolutely NO sense of humor. Maybe an alien's sense.

So you'd throw around some of these slightly difficult things from FFVII, see if they still get a good response. If not, you try to work with it until it functions again.

With voice acting, you have to take a more considered approach to the lines. I would definitely have some rewrites to make the dialogue more natural in places. That is, without 1: Making it seem like it's been poorly translated, and 2: making the game feel like it's being taken over by a team that doesn't care about the game's soul, something that can change very easily if you don't watch your step. It is whatever team's responsibility to translate the mind of the original. A brain transplant, right? Same program, new shell. But what must be taken into account is the VAST psychological difference between dialogue experienced through only reading, and dialogue experienced through performance. That's just something you can not fully understand until you have seen written dialogue performed for the first time.

That said, you would still make an effort to keep as much as possible from the original script. As much that still works on an emotional level without making people gag, roll their eyes, or laugh inappropriately. And also a part of that is knowing who will probably be directing it. Scenes that may come off as wrong with one director will come off right with another who understands how to shift tone without breaking suspension of disbelief. We'd still be entertaining people here, in a slightly different way than the original, but not to a different end result.

Sorry this is so long. I just do feel convinced it can be done. The only reason it isn't -- and is constantly being rejected by the officials -- is that Square Enix is in a bad spot right now. The stars are terribly out of alignment. Fingers crossed for XV's success.
 

Kuja9001

Banned
A lot of the Final Fantasy games could claim these accolades.

I was simply stating possible reasons for FF7 to be many people's first FF, moreso than any other title up until then, and that being the main contributor to it's increased popularity over the others.

Let me reframe the point: Do you think that most of the people who bought it had played a SNES Final Fantasy beforehand?

No
 
A remake would be the biggest undertaking of your life Kitase? Shows how creatively bankrupt this company is.

Final Fantasy VII is one of those games that desperately needs a remake.

Game is fun to play, but it's aged horribly.
This. Kids these days need to experience it also, its been a long time.
 

glaurung

Member
If FFVII remake would take 10 years to make, why did you not start ten years ago.

Excuses, excuses. At the same time, most new FF games are manure.
 
If FFVII remake would take 10 years to make, why did you not start ten years ago.

Excuses, excuses. At the same time, most new FF games are manure.

I still find this kind of ridiculous

I know its a giant game though. But not THAT much bigger than the HD Jrpgs that exist now.

Hell Bandai Namcos is pumping out HD tales games left and right. Probably on 3 year dev cycles.

Maybe more time and research needs to go into some more universal tools and engines to make the game making process easier.

I dunno man. HD game development is all over the place right now. Dev times can vary Wildly and its so risky. Its no surprise that the indie/low budget scene is exploding. And no wonder Mobile is so attractive right now.
 
I find it entirely believable that SE would be mis-managed enough to take a decade to push out an FF7 remake when XV is looking likely to come out at the 10th year anniversary of its original announcement.
 

LevelNth

Banned
I love so much how much demand there still is for a potential FFVII remake/HD upgrade project. Goes to show just how much Square and Wada missed the ball on this almost a decade ago, and how much money it would've made the company.

It cannot be stated enough, there is no single company in this industry that deserves to fail more solely on the foundations of their own ineptitude.
 
I still find this kind of ridiculous

I know its a giant game though. But not THAT much bigger than the HD Jrpgs that exist now.

Hell Bandai Namcos is pumping out HD tales games left and right. Probably on 3 year dev cycles.

Maybe more time and research needs to go into some more universal tools and engines to make the game making process easier.

I dunno man. HD game development is all over the place right now. Dev times can vary Wildly and its so risky. Its no surprise that the indie/low budget scene is exploding. And no wonder Mobile is so attractive right now.
They're obviously just trying to keep the FFVII "brand" relevant without doing much work, it'll happen just gen, especially with how well the PS4 is selling.
 

Dark_castle

Junior Member
If FFVII remake would take 10 years to make, why did you not start ten years ago.

Excuses, excuses. At the same time, most new FF games are manure.
I don't know about you, I would be fucking pissed at any company which decides to remake games all the way rather than moving forward and come up with new content.
 
There's a feature in this months OPM UK about FFVII, about how it still plays amazingly and hasn't really aged a day, providing you can get back into that PS1 mindset (which doesn't take much). IMO, remake beggars are the worst kind of FF fans. These games should be preserved, or remastered like KH and FFX. But full-on remakes? No thanks. Leave these games as the exemplifications of the eras that they came from.
 
I don't know about you, I would be fucking pissed at any company which decides to remake games all the way rather than moving forward and come up with new content.

I still feel like there is a more clever way to actually do a remake without going full blown from the ground up remake

Look at some of the FF7 PC mods. They aren't incredible but certainly a simple way to improve on the original.

Heck just changing out the Blocky characters would have been enough.

Not sure how the PC mods handled the prerendered backgrounds. Ive only watched vids. Anyone have experience with the PC Version mods?
 

LevelNth

Banned
I don't know about you, I would be fucking pissed at any company which decides to remake games all the way rather than moving forward and come up with new content.
And yet this is absurd thinking that has pushed SE into the position that they are in at all. The FFVII remake demand is not on the level of any other remake seen prior in the industry.

It is that rare fusion of game that both technologically is primed for a remake and continues to stand as the single most important RPG in terms of elevating console RPG's to the status they are (were?) at.

It defies comparison. They gambled not, and didn't want to risk the resources, and holy damn did they bet wrong.
 

MOG728

Member
A Final Fantasy VI remake would be even better IMO. I think a lot of people missed out on that game (that currently play games), and imagine it developed in a fully developed current gen world. With VII, you have Crisis Core, Advent Children, etc. but with VI (which is equally as lauded) you don't have as much of a fully developed world.

When it comes to VII, I do see what Kitase is saying in terms of the resources it would take, but I do find it hard to believe that it would be a much more difficult process than developing multiple XIII games. Heck, if Western developers can make games like Skyrim and Mass Effect on last gen consoles -- I think that the opportunities are endless on current gen. It is surprising that SE business hats havent pushed for this, as it seems like a surefire success.

You also gotta think that an advantage of doing a remake instead of a whole new FF, is that the story, the music, the map overlay, and tons of resources are already done for this game.

Overall though, I would just love for Square to produce Final Fantasy's with the same level of quality we had from VI-X. Just do that again and I'll never complain about not seeing a remake.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
As for "HD towns," I think Square proved they can do that in XIII-2 (at least that's what I can tell from the demo. That isn't the only town in the whole game is it?). From what I've seen of FFVII, keep the abstract proportions on the world map, but make towns & dungeons of a similar fidelity to XIII-2 (or XV if it's a PS4 game). I think Ni No Kuni proves it is possible to make an RPG of a scale similar to the classics with modern graphics. I guess the amount of audio might be a factor if SE thinks it needs to voice every single line of dialogue (which, again, wasn't the case with XIII-2).

Really the only major thing stopping this from happening right now is other Final Fantasy games and Kingdom Hearts III. It would definitely take the production budget and time of a standard full FF game, but the sales would probably justify it.
I think people tend to get overwhelmed over the concept of a big city and not the reality of it. They fool themselves into thinking, "Midgar is a BIG, SPRAWLING metropolis with many districts, buildings, underground corridors and slums! You just can't do all THAT!". The truth is, you NEVER explore Midgar in it's entirety in the original game. Hell, what you explore is just a tiny fraction of the concept of it's entirety. Basically, you explore bits here, bits there. Basically set piece by set piece. Even Shinra HQ, people talk about it like you explore all of it. You are only able to enter a handful of floors. I'd basically expect it to be more along the lines of FFXII's Archades(maybe larger, of coures) which kept a great feel of being massive while exploration was rather basic(it was like a classic RPG town with buildings you can enter than only provided the basic needs, like shops and such).

Of course, it would also depend on how to show the world. Will it be fixed camera, fully 3D with zoom feature. They could easily cut corners by making interiors of some locations(shops, non-important house interiors) 3D but at fixed angles(so you don't have to spend time rendering the most intricate of detail on something you'll never get to zoom in on, as well as save them from rendering/detailing the ENTIRE room and only focus on the portion you will see via the fixed angle).

I really think it can be done, and done fairly simple. Square wouldn't be held back by Crystal Tools this time.

Also, if they ever arrange the soundtrack, they gotta get the Black Mage's version of Still More Fighting. That's basically what I envisioned the original to sound like if it was played by a rock band with real musical instruments.
 

Colby

Member
Look, if they really think it will take 10 years to finish, then they either have extremely incompetent developers (debatable, I guess), or their vision needs to be reworked. It will take a long time, obviously. The music needs to be remastered and orchestrated, the dialogue needs to be cleaned up, there would be a TON of voice acting...but 10 years? No way.

Think about the towns of FF7. Kalm is just a smattering of houses. Bone Village is less than that. Mideel is the same. Fort Condor is a few rooms. Gongaga is barely anything. Nibelheim is a few houses. As someone else said, you barely explore Midgar. To me, the real issues would come from Juno and Shinra building, and those aren't THAT ridiculous. The graphics and engine would take the most work, but just re-use FF13 assets and create new assets where they are needed. Much of FF13 is beautiful, no doubt about that.

I don't get the "I don't want a remake because I don't believe in Square" talk. If they remake it, and it's abysmal, you can still go back and play your PS1 copy. Nothing changes for you. I'd rather them at least try to remake one of the greatest games ever in most of our eyes.
 

Wazzy

Banned
If I trusted Square enough, I would love a VII-IX remake collection. The problem is, I fear that they would impliment too many negative changes rather than positives. My ideal for the remakes would be to aim for something that actually resembles the original's artstyle. No ugly AC realistic models for VII nor AC's look for VIII. I found VIII's graphics always made the characters look more realistic than the style they keep doing for the series now.

I would love either a cellshaded artstyle for VII or KH would work well too.

I don't get the "I don't want a remake because I don't believe in Square" talk. If they remake it, and it's abysmal, you can still go back and play your PS1 copy. Nothing changes for you. I'd rather them at least try to remake one of the greatest games ever in most of our eyes.

You can't see how messing up how the original game was in a remake might upset people? Knowing that a poorly done remake is going to be a lot of peoples introduction into the series?

Many people get upset when things they like are touched and ruined.
 
You can't see how messing up how the original game was in a remake might upset people? Knowing that a poorly done remake is going to be a lot of peoples introduction into the series?

Many people get upset when things they like are touched and ruined.
I'll say this, it CAN'T mess up the original any more than the FFVII Compilation did.
 
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