Y NO REMAKE?

[Spooniest]

I agree. It would involve a general restructuring of their marketing philosophy. This is something it's going to take a near-death experience for the company as a whole to bring about. If the studio gets sold, we might see this, or it might turn out to be a nightmare. Take your pick.

[*Laurelindo*]

For me, remakes are always a way to say "the original game is not good enough as it is".
In fact I think it is a bit of an insult when people start talking about "remaking" a game; if you really like a game then the original version should be good enough for you.

Remakes can be fun for variation and a different experience, but I always play the original version more, and tend to enjoy them more.
The only kind of "impovements" I fully support are those that actually improve direct flaws, like poor controls and bugs.

[Spooniest]

The big draw of a remake is the presentation of the story. A segment of a game's fans want to see the story redone with a more up-to-date look and feel.

I imagine one problem with this (Final Fantasy VI) is that the story, such as it is, was limited by the available memory of the cartridge format. When you have more space to work with, how do you decide what will "flesh out" the story without changing the characters in a way that will upset fans?

A related problem is that in the way the original story was presented, much of the scenario writer's interpretation of the characters may have been lost because of the limits a 16-bit cart placed on characterization. On top of that, if a new team ends up working on the game, then the original writer's interpretation may be misunderstood by the new writer, or simply altered to the new writer's taste.

Here's an example: Terra's backstory has a giant hole in it. We know that she was taken by the Empire as an infant, and that she eventually was put under the control of Kefka using the slave crown. But what happened in between? With the added "room" given to the story by a new format, the writer may want to put some more detail into the story...but how will the writer decide what to say about her? If it's the original writer, then we can assume that this is his interpretation, but suppose his doesn't agree with ours?

Another kind of example is how the characters are presented. Some people may "think of" a character in a different way than the writer does. This comes into play when you're trying to add something like voice acting. Dissidia provides an excellent example of this. Did you expect Terra to come off as such a wimp? They managed to nail Kefka, but perhaps that's due to his one-dimensional nature (Uwee hee hee hee hee.) Another example is Final Fantasy IV DS. Did you expect Kain to have such a deep voice? Or Rydia to sound like a teenager as opposed to a small girl?

These issues are difficult to address, but in order to put out a quality product that fans will enjoy, but new adopters will also want to pick up, they have to be dealt with. And that takes a lot of time. And a lot of money. And a team working their behinds off and drinking an awful lot of coffee. For months.

So, it would really, really be unbelievable if Square decided to really do it up for a remake. Likely, we'll see what they could afford to push out the door in time.

And let's be frank; the original was ALSO what they could afford to push out the door in time. Square are practically the masters of "what we can push out the door in time." And if they decide to remake a game, it's gonna be their level best, and anyone who liked the original game should give it a fair play through.

[*Laurelindo*]

Story-wise they could certainly include those things that they just couldn't fit into the original, it's when they start changing names and scripts for no real reason that I think they make unnecessary changes; my biggest complaint is usually when they change a natural-sounding English script into something much worse just because "it is more literal to the Japanese script".
Spellings are also common screw-ups - like Banon into "Banan", Locke into "Lock" etc (or even Izlude from Final Fantasy Tactics into "Isliud" ).
I don't know about you, but personally I think those name changes make the names look much uglier.

[Jiro]

I agree with *Laurelindo* entirely.

[Spooniest]

Me too. They focus so much on changing the names of things and never really add to the story.

So much was implied about their storytelling ability by the limits that were placed on them by the hardware that when the medium gives them the space to tell a more detailed story, they seem to get kind of lost. Advent Children, in particular, seemed to suffer from this, as did Dissidia.

[*Laurelindo*]

Although in all fairness I think they also sometimes do rather good name changes, like in Final fantasy Origins, where they changed Coneria and Altea into Cornelia and Altair;
not that the old names were bad or anything, but the newer names just seem better and sound prettier.

[Spooniest]

We all want the impossible, for a remake of a game to top the original, to be a definitive version of the game. I'm sure Square feels they have better things to do in the long run, but they might change their mind. There's not really a lot we can do about it. If anything, they're going to be paying attention to the Japanese market first, seeing as they are based in Japan. It's been a running trend in the game industry since Japan took the lead in the 80's.

Final Fantasy VI is the most "Western" JRPG that has ever been produced. They managed to work in a WW2 theme, jokes about political correctness (I'm a TREASURE HUNTER!!), and to date, the darkest thematic content that a game in the series has since broached (After the End, anyone?). They clearly hoped it'd sell well in America. Sorting out the stew of what they want to put into a remake will take time.

[Wolf Kanno]

Marketing the game might be an issue, but one that is less about the games quality and more about the state of the genre itself. VII can get away with still being a big hit cause the game has a history as an iconic title, and because of the Compilation and KH creating new fans. VI doesn't really have either. So a remake would definetly be something targeted towards old fans more than anything and here lies the next problem, which is that from what I've noticed, VI is a popular game in the U.S. only. Japan ranks VI somewhere in the middle behind VII, X, IV, and III and Europe and other PAL regions didn't get the game until almost the end of the PS1s life cycle, so if it doesn't have the same kind of fans that some of the Sony era titles do.

While I would love to see a console remake of VI, simply to see what it would be like (whether it transitions well is a completely different story) I would pretty much say the chances of it happening are slim to none unless SE started giving VI some heavy PR and that would involve doing something like the Compilation which I really can't say I would like to see. Even then its not likely, VII itself has a pretty good chance of getting a full remake because its almost a guaranteed success unless VII fans in the media have really been over exaggerating interest in such a product and the numbers don't match the amount of interest such a feat would entail, but VII has problems in the technical side, which is keeping the product a pipe dream at best. VI would also have this issue, and possibly more, I can't imagine what it would be like to try to build two world maps (and that's assuming they want to be faithful and not just pull a FFX/XII point and click type map) in full high detail 3D. We can't even get a world map on a normal FF title let alone try to see them accomplish making two very different maps for a remake.

I would almost daresay (and I'm sure some VII fan will pipe in and argue against this) that VI would easily be a much more difficult project to do a full fledged HD console remake than VII would; simply because it combines the novelty of the 16-bit era's simple but clever design with some of the more theatrical elements that VII has creating two very different design issues. The game is the real middle child between the old era and the middle era. Stuff like multiple world maps, VI's enormous monster list, the fact it has the largest amount of summons in the series which would all probably be given the modern "cinematic" treatment, not to mention just trying to integrate some of the changes a new team would probably add. The game is looking less and less manageable as a remake, especially one that isn't guaranteed to recoup its costs.

The other issue here is walking the tightrope of "updating and modernizing" the game, without alienating the fanbase. Considering the amount of whining and bitching and moaning I had to listen to on this forum about the "sacrilege" of the GBA script, I'm going to say that this task will be a serious uphill battle for SE. Every change will be greeted with terribly scrutiny and if SE tries to remain too faithful, it will just make it feel like a dated 16-bit RPG with modern day graphics and that will not go over so well for anyone.

If VI was to get a major remake, the fans should prepare for some serious changes and alterations, and it will be more than just "submariner" being changed to "sandworm", I would not be surprised if humorous moments are written out and other scenes are completely changed. One I would expect most would be the Opera scene going from a mini-game to a full fledged FMV with John Woo doves flying out of the woodwork. I can see controlling Leo also being turned completely into a cutscene as well. Characters like Lone Wolf the Pickpocket,and Siegfried would most likely get heavy rewrites if not completely fazed out of the game entirely. I'm not sure how many VI fans would tolerate this, let alone pay good money for it, if it meant having some of their favorite elements, moments, and characters changed.

I haven't even touched on gameplay changes. While I personally love VI as a game, I seriously don't think today's gamers would tolerate it as well. Both old school gamers who are happy we moved away from such archaic designs to younger gamers who are more accustomed to having everything handed to them. VI is the last FF to really force players to make difficult game choices (unless its the gba version then you can have your cake and eat it too) and not everything in the game is intuitive, its still one of those titles where you need to explore and try new things if you want to actually discover everything. On the flip side, many will pick up guides and then bitch and whine about how VI was designed poorly cause it requires a guide, cause how the hell would a player know to let the Zone Eater eat them to get the secret dungeon and Gogo? Or see Shadow's Past? Visit Cyan's Dreamworld, and the find the Ancient Castle with Figaro Castle? Or the sheer stupidity of the Cursed Shield, not to mention the Coliseum would definetly have to be redesigned cause even VI fans bitch about the Coliseum mechanics. I personally find most of this stuff is what made VI amazing but one man's happiness is another man's poison.

The most we could ever hope for, is that SE will make a low grade remake, either hiring Matrix to do another remake of V and VI similar to the III and IV remakes or at best, we could hope to see one that incorporates Crisis Core/Dissidia's engines. The company has enough teams well knowledgeable in said engines they could push it to make a V and VI remake happen while not breaking the bank but it would probably be a graphical remake only with Va work and a flashy opening super detailed FMV.

[Hollycat]

I would hope they would at least give a 3d walkaround map like they did for the ds

[Polnareff]

Marketing the game might be an issue, but one that is less about the games quality and more about the state of the genre itself. VII can get away with still being a big hit cause the game has a history as an iconic title, and because of the Compilation and KH creating new fans.

Besides this, marketing games doesn't always work anyway, and is a huge gamble these days unless your name is Halo or Madden. They'd almost certainly need to do a compilation-type dealy, but I know most fans would object to that (myself included).

VI doesn't really have either. So a remake would definetly be something targeted towards old fans more than anything and here lies the next problem, which is that from what I've noticed, VI is a popular game in the U.S. only. Japan ranks VI somewhere in the middle behind VII, X, IV, and III and Europe and other PAL regions didn't get the game until almost the end of the PS1s life cycle, so if it doesn't have the same kind of fans that some of the Sony era titles do.

Plus VI, with its appeal to older fans, is likely not gonna recoup the money they put into a remake because the fanbase for it is a lot smaller (though more vocal) than games like FFVII, FFX, and the like. FFIV was different because it was on DS, and development costs are pretty low on DS from what I understand. But Square-Enix reps have even apparently come out and said that they can't remake V and VI for the DS, that they need something more powerful.

[mashowasho]

I'm in favour of them doing an updated-graphics PSP port like they did with I & II... since I won't be shelling out for a DS, and the chibi-style graphics for 3 and 4 were a bit meh.