VII HD remake won't happen until 2017 (theory)

[APolaris]

Question: Wouldn't a FF7 remake, if anything, take less time than a new FF game? After all, you'd presumably be coding villages, a world map, battle system, monsters, skill system, gameplay, music, dialogue, NPCs, and characters either way. The difference is that with a remake, you don't need to create all of those from the ground up. The character designs already exist, the battle and skill systems already exist, the world has already been created, and probably half of the music already exists in fully orchestrated recordings (in some cases since as early as the '90s). For a new game, wouldn't you have to design concepts for all of these things and then do just as much programming for these hard-conceptualized ideas as you would for a remake of another game? It's also not like FF7 has a tremendous quantity of sidequests compared to, say, FF12, or like they take nearly as long, or like the materia system and battle system are at all complicated. Literally all a remake needs is to redo the translation, redo the graphics that have already been 100% conceptualized as opposed to 0% for a new release, and insert the orchestrated music.

I don't worship FF7 and I think FF6 is a slightly better game, but honestly, these guys seem to forget that FF7 is still hyped by tons of fanboys on sites like GameFAQs and magazines like Famitsu as the best game ever - and on the former, they've proven on several occasions that they have the largest fanboy community. It sold over 1 1/2 times more new copies than any other Square release since 2001, and 2-8 times most of said releases. We're talking more than X and X-2 combined. Over 7 and a half million people have looked up and watched the PS3 FF7 demo on Youtube alone, more than any MGS video, the first TTFAF FC in Guitar Hero 3, or the Halo 4 trailer. Reputation-wise, FF7 is like the Dark Side of the Moon of video games. Financially, it makes no sense not to remake it. No game ever made has a bigger remake fanbase among people aged 20+ and it would also sell to most of the kids who would buy the next FF game anyway. Heck, it'd probably even sell consoles just like the original game did.

[G13]

It just says FFX. The release date is April 1st, VII will be the innards of the X case. Gotcha!

Don't you guys ever think that maybe Square doesn't want to be remembered as the guys who made VII, but rather Final Fantasy in general? I remember hearing Radiohead didn't perform Creep for the longest time after it became big. I'd bet two or more of my testicles that it is the same principle.

[Arylett Dawnsborough]

A remake of FFVII won't happen, period.
Square-Enix is too smurfing incompetent today to create a game on the scale of a FFVII remake(without screwing-up). They already said if they do it, the game would have to be in current/good graphics, but that would take too much time and resources anyway. I mean, just look at how long it took them to release FFXIII, and how long is taking them to release FFvsXIII, two games that don't come even close to FFVII's complexity(the entire world-map, tons of NPCs, tons of cutscenes, etc).
Square-Enix don't have the capacity to make grand-scale games, and they know it. That's why most of their games lately are for hand-helds.


And from what I heard, this is not an actual remake of FFX.

I think that's a bit harsh to say. The games of today take a MUCH longer time to make and have an absolutely huge budget. Especially games for the PS3 because of the advanced graphics. It's probably less of incompetence, and more that the games today are much more complex than back in the PS1 era when things were blocky and pixely. I think they're doing handhelds a lot more because they've reached the level of the PS2 in terms of graphics and technology, and I presume that's much easier to work with.

Anyway, I don't really think a remake will ever come out. But I could be proved wrong. 20 years does seem /sort/ of likely, although I agree with the whole position that 7 years would've made more sense. Or heck, even 10 years. At the moment though, Square seems particularly reluctant in their position at the moment. Maybe they're afraid of screwing it up because it is a REALLY popular game and they'd have to handle that with care. Or maybe they just want to preserve the integrity of the original. (Although I did read somewhere that they will not remake it because it's available on a current console, the PS3, for PSN. I'm not sure where I read this though, so it could be wrong.)

[Sephiroth]

Question: Wouldn't a FF7 remake, if anything, take less time than a new FF game? After all, you'd presumably be coding villages, a world map, battle system, monsters, skill system, gameplay, music, dialogue, NPCs, and characters either way. The difference is that with a remake, you don't need to create all of those from the ground up. The character designs already exist, the battle and skill systems already exist, the world has already been created, and probably half of the music already exists in fully orchestrated recordings (in some cases since as early as the '90s). For a new game, wouldn't you have to design concepts for all of these things and then do just as much programming for these hard-conceptualized ideas as you would for a remake of another game? It's also not like FF7 has a tremendous quantity of sidequests compared to, say, FF12, or like they take nearly as long, or like the materia system and battle system are at all complicated. Literally all a remake needs is to redo the translation, redo the graphics that have already been 100% conceptualized as opposed to 0% for a new release, and insert the orchestrated music.

I don't worship FF7 and I think FF6 is a slightly better game, but honestly, these guys seem to forget that FF7 is still hyped by tons of fanboys on sites like GameFAQs and magazines like Famitsu as the best game ever - and on the former, they've proven on several occasions that they have the largest fanboy community. It sold over 1 1/2 times more new copies than any other Square release since 2001, and 2-8 times most of said releases. We're talking more than X and X-2 combined. Over 7 and a half million people have looked up and watched the PS3 FF7 demo on Youtube alone, more than any MGS video, the first TTFAF FC in Guitar Hero 3, or the Halo 4 trailer. Reputation-wise, FF7 is like the Dark Side of the Moon of video games. Financially, it makes no sense not to remake it. No game ever made has a bigger remake fanbase among people aged 20+ and it would also sell to most of the kids who would buy the next FF game anyway. Heck, it'd probably even sell consoles just like the original game did.

Even though the idea of Final Fantasy VII already exists I think making the world map is hard enough. And there is the pressure that you may not disappoint the fans by doing something wrong with Final Fantasy VII.

And yes, I love Final Fantasy VI as well. I would like to have PS III Versions of both Final Fantasys.

[nirojan]

Ohh man anyone else see this:
PSN Top Sellers: September 2011 Edition – PlayStation Blog

FFVII remains in the top 10 downloaded PSN titles last month, despite being released on the PS Store 2 years ago!

And before you ask, it does usually crack this list. It's not uncommon to see it on the top 10 if you watch Pulse on PSN. I think SE should start crackin on that remake. Didn't Yourichi IMPERIAL HOT Wada say that "the Compiliation of Final Fantasy VII project would remain open until it's 20th anniversary". 2017 is right around the corner and knowing SE, they'll probably need the 6 years to get it running on the PS4!

[Bolivar]

^ I'm pretty sure Square Enix has to be noticing that. I'm not sure how well PSN titles sell, but considering Battlefield 1943, a game with a dead, or on life support, community from 2-3 years ago is int he top 20 makes me feel like not INSANELY well. But to stay in the top 10, it has to be doing pretty damn well.

[Super Sepiroth]

hmm as much as I hate to say it, and as controversial (or not) as my (I think) 100th post here will be, I don't think they'll ever will remake it. I think they're too scared of screwing it up, which is a shame because they'd make a lot of money from it. But as the point keeps being made:- They can't satisfy all fans of the game. I think Square-Enix would be prepared to put the time and effort required, if it were to be a guaranteed success. But cos not everyone would be happy with the result, they don't have the reassurances it would need to begin production. Apparently they are making a world map for vs XIII, so I'd wait until thats released before making a FINAL judgement, but I'm just tired of holding my breath for a project that will probably never come
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