Final Fantasy VII Remake is a multi-part series

Have you ever played FF7? There are so many locations that are completely different from each other, they cant just reuse assets all over the game like most AAA games do today. There are a ton of mini games, there are going to be 11 fully controlable characters with their own unique fighting styles, there are going to be dozens of magic spels, dozens of summons, dozens of support materia.

10 years ago Square Enix told us that a normal development team would need 10 years to make FF7 with PS3 graphics, thats why they never made it.

The only way to get FF7 with PS4 graphics and no compromises is to split up like this.
I was going to reply with something sarcastic to this post but I'm 30 years old, I played final fantasy VII back when it was released and through the years, I know what the game is and what the game has. No need to tell me. And you misunderstood my post. I wasn't asking why can't they do. I was just making the point that if theyee saying they can't fit all the content into one game with final fabtasy VII remake then we should expect final fantasy XV to be a smaller game than we were originally lead to believe(at least I was lead to believe). Remember when they said they were aiming for a game that would surpass final fantasy VII? And everything they're saying to me reads as square enix trying to politely ask us if they can fuck us. And no I'm not an angry fan. I just know companies well tell us a lot of BS to get us on board with nonsense like this. Example, killer instinct back in 2013. Which company in their right mind would release a fighting game with only 6 characters in the modern day...then release more and more of the game as the years went along? But with the right PR behind it fans ate that shit up. I'm calling BS on this, if the company is that passionate about their game they will find a way to fit what they need to fit into one game. Like I said earlier this just seems like then politely asking us to fuck us because of how much money they can potentially make from this project.
 
Woke up with massive headache and my stomach is cramping.

Yeah, yesterday night was hectic.
 
Games like The Witcher 3 shows that any company can make a huge open world. If CDProject could, Square-Enix is capable of it and more.
 
Not really. If they take two screens from the original and make them 10 corridors, that is on them, and it already looks like that is what they are doing. They don't need to at all. The original used the space it had well in terms of areas. Throwing that out the window at great expense doesn't help anyone, or the game for that matter.

Well, it is not about simply about translating the maps into 3D just like it is not about the same kind of turn based combat. They are trying to accomodate the game to today's standards so it's impossible for them to economize in the same way the developers did in the original, same with the voice acting and the cutscenes (like the train jump we saw in the trailer). It's a lot of neccesary work.

And it always will be a staggering amount of content. Breaking it into episodes in no way makes it easier to develop. They can just pull a profit quicker. Which is obviously a good thing, but it's not necessary IMO.
Well, IMO it definitely gives them more flexibity to cut it in pieces and focus in one at a time than just release a ginormous game half a decade down the line with the fanbase breathing at their neck. I'm not saying they're not doing it for the money (obviously they are) but I think there are also real technical and development issues behind this decision which justify their approach.
 
Square isnt slow, they built A realm reborn in two years, FFXV didnt start PS4 development until late 2012, it will ship in 2016. Thats 4 years, thats the same as most AAA games.

Keep in mind, Squares games arent built like COD or AC where they can just reuse mechanics and assets for everything. They generally have completely different art styles and combat mechanics for each game. That stuff takes times.

Yep. And it's not easy to create a huge fantasy world from scratch.
 
Have you ever played FF7? There are so many locations that are completely different from each other, they cant just reuse assets all over the game like most AAA games do today. There are a ton of mini games, there are going to be 11 fully controlable characters with their own unique fighting styles, there are going to be dozens of magic spels, dozens of summons, dozens of support materia.

All of that will simply not be doable in the new format... we will see a fraction of the spells, summons, etc. It would simply be too much.

Remaking VII 1-1 in modern style was never an option... but S-E knew they had to try something due to the undeniable demand.
 
Seriously? This is going to break up the pacing of the game so much...does this mean no world map??? :(

not-like-this.gif
 
Have multiple large sections and include the older ones in the later parts. I do not see what seems so impossible about this?

People use Witcher 3 as a reference, but that world is in fact cut up in several large sections and a few smaller ones. And later DLC even opened up a part of an excisting open world map.

So do you think that at last episode, every part is connected and you can visit whole world?
Maybe that's possible, but I probably would then wanted that full game, and not in episodic format, even if that would have meant releasing the game later.
 
I try not to be overly negative too much because I know I have very specific tastes in games however this remake is just a perfect example of everything that's wrong with the industry at the moment in my opinion.

Developers make HD versions or even remakes of old classics rather then attempt to make a new one while at the same time destroying elements of those classical games in order to reach a wider public. Add on top of that the idea that you can't make a big game anymore because it costs too much even though the gaming industry is now larger then Hollywood. The cynical part of me wonder if the next announcement will be new skins if you preorder?

I'm not a huge final fantasy fan. I gave up on the series after Final Fantasy X but I would have rather seen them make a smaller budget HD version/Release for the actual fans in the sense Beamdog did with Baldur's gate rather then aim for a blockbuster remake that change everything about the original.
 
Sucks but I'm hoping for 20$ each and no cut content from the original because otherwise I'd never buy it, lol.
I've been looking forward to this since the only FF I've played was Final Fantasy 10 which was amazing!.
 
This is what I meant when I said it seems like FFXIII with KH gameplay and a fellow gaffer misunderstood me. Will we be out on the world map and have invisible walls or caution tape around towns that aren't released yet?

The original game never gave you full reign of the world map until you got the Highwind/Gold Chocobo- before that certain areas were always behind 'invisible walls', blocked off unless you had certain vehicle to go over rivers/terrain, or until you reached a certain point in the story- splitting the game into parts doesn't change this in any way - the same places will be accessible when you reach that point of the story, with the map data being in each disc. You will never see a town that isn't 'released yet' because you won't be at the point of the story where that is accessible yet, just like the original game.
 
Yeah, I can see that. But I just can't imagine that the game will have big open world like for example Skyrim, where you can go pretty much go anywhere from the start, even if they would block entrances to caves, towns etc. Like I think first episode will be pretty much Midgar section.

I don't know, I guess I need just more information. Now I just have hard time imagine what kind solution they will have for the world.

You are very limited in where you can go in the first disc.

You leave midgar but you are surrounded by mountains and ocean, you can only go 1 way. Then they give you a buggy and you can cross a river, then they give you Cids water plane and you can go through shallow water. But most of the game is not available.
 
Well, it is not about simply about translating the maps into 3D just like it is not about the same kind of turn based combat. They are trying to accomodate the game to today's standards so it's impossible for them to economize in the same way the developers did in the original, same with the voice acting and the cutscenes (like the train jump we saw in the trailer). It's a lot of neccesary work.


Well, IMO it definitely gives them more flexibity to cut it in pieces and focus in one at a time than just release a ginormous game half a decade down the line with the fanbase breathing aat their neck. I'm not saying they're not doing it for the money (obviously they are) but I think there are also real technical and development issues behind this decision which justify their approach.

Yeah I agree there, but that type of dev process has its own pitfalls. Designing a game that is supposed to be an interconnected world in a piecemeal way will inevitably cause problems, especially if they have no budget and therefore plan for later episodes at the start which the current situation has me leaning toward believing.
 
Sucks but I'm hoping for 20$ each and no cut content from the original because otherwise I'd never buy it, lol.
I've been looking forward to this since the only FF I've played was Final Fantasy 10 which was amazing!.
Don't get your hopes up. I can't imagine them selling each episode for only $20.00
 
Is that the sound of my interest being killed? Yep, it is.
What a stupid move. I'll wait for the complete package, when and if it will be released.
 
Yep. And it's not easy to create a huge fantasy world from scratch.

It would have been a lot easier if they had used an established engine rather than wasting years and years on the Crystal Engine and having to cobble together 3 FFXIII titles from the wreckage. SE were simply incompetent last generation, their big games were poorly received, cost them a lot of money and left them years behind the curve. Only now are they even approaching a functional production pipeline and yet their big games are still going to take years and years to come out.

For almost an entire generation they couldn't even build a town in HD, such was their incompetence.
 
You are very limited in where you can go in the first disc.

You leave midgar but you are surrounded by mountains and ocean, you can only go 1 way. Then they give you a buggy and you can cross a river, then they give you Cids water plane and you can go through shallow water. But most of the game is not available.

Yes, but at final disc you can explore the whole world, which I doubt that you can do in the remake. Like in the last episode, how much data that would be if every are from previous episodes would be included?
 
"Data size so huge"

"We want to extract as much money out of fans as possible by making them pay for individual episodes, then pay again for a complete, definitive edition that will include special content unavailable in the individual episodes."
 
i really dont think 1 Episode will = one disc was just looking at disc one and there is alot of stuff.

Midgar bombing mission
Sector 5 Slums
Wall Market
Sewer / Train Graveyard
Sector 6
Shinra Building
Travelling to Kalm
Chocobo Farm
Mythril Mine
Junon
Cargo Ship
Mount Corel
Gold Saucer
Corel Prison
Gongaga
Cosmo Canyon
Nibelheim
Rocket Town
Temple of the Ancients
Bone Village
Forgotten Capital

I can see them splitting disc one up into like 4 episode alone.... please look forward to it!
 
Sucks but I'm hoping for 20$ each and no cut content from the original because otherwise I'd never buy it, lol.
I've been looking forward to this since the only FF I've played was Final Fantasy 10 which was amazing!.

While I appreciate your optimism, I fear that each part would be about $40-60. Maybe they would do a discounted price for all parts, once they have been released.
 
You are very limited in where you can go in the first disc.

You leave midgar but you are surrounded by mountains and ocean, you can only go 1 way. Then they give you a buggy and you can cross a river, then they give you Cids water plane and you can go through shallow water. But most of the game is not available.

Yep
FFVII may have a world map but for the most part, actually traveling it is pretty linear for most of the game, seems people forgot that. It's not 'open world' by any stretch of the imagination.
 
Yes, but the overworld of Final Fantasy VII is not very huge. It has 3 big citys and 5 or 6 small towns...

It's not that big...in a 1997-style overworld. If blown up to the scale of Witcher 3, it'd be fucking massive. Witcher 3's big city is a single city, and Midgar, properly shown, would be many times that size.
 
Personally, I am okay with this. Actually, I think this will be ultimately a good thing.

People are asking for the ultimate remake, you can't really go half-baked with FFVII. Can you fit ALL of FFVII's epicness, story, cutscenes (now voiced), quests, WORLD, in one disc IN FULL HD? Don't need to be a pro gaming developer to know the answer is NOPE.

If they went for a one-shot release, they would have to cut things down, to hold themselves. By going for episodic releases, the scope increases significantly, and we are guaranteed to get rich content and value.

Only downside I see is that we'll beat Sephiroth in around 2024 lol

Oh, and the pricing - they'll probably price each part as a full game -____-

Multiple discs wouldn't hurt, games are installed anyways. The issue isn't space for them.
 
It's not that big...in a 1997-style overworld. If blown up to the scale of Witcher 3, it'd be fucking massive. Witcher 3's big city is a single city, and Midgar, properly shown, would be many times that size.

Is it really realistic to think Square are going to do Midgar GTA - city size style? are people really that optimistic?
 
Yes, but the overworld of Final Fantasy VII is not very huge. It has 3 big citys and 5 or 6 small towns...

Compare that to modern open world games, where its 1 big city, and multiple settlements some of which could be called towns.

Now expand that to modern day graphics, FF7 (1997) is still a pretty large world, not counting the different scenarios, quests, side quests etc.

Apart from Witcher 3, most open world games campaigns are not that story rich. Even Witcher 2 had more story beats than Witcher 3. What I think they aim with FF7 is creating a full fat linear JRPG experience WITH a open world quests and elements.

Still not sure how they will do it on a episodic structure but the MMO format of expansions seems to fit best.

Imagine FF7 episode 2 (disc/downlod) contains the world along with the story elements for episode 2 only. I imagine by the time the full story is out you might be looking at 100 GB+ of data for the whole thing.
 
This could mean that the game will probably let us play the plot highlights of the original.

All my hype is deflated right now.

No it means the opposite, as Nomura has stated.
Putting it onto one disc = FFVII Digest (as you suggest)
Splitting it over several titles = FFVII with more depth, rendered at the quality we saw in the trailer
 
Games like The Witcher 3 shows that any company can make a huge open world. If CDProject could, Square-Enix is capable of it and more.

The huge open world is only part of the problem, there is a huge variety of locations unlike Witcher 3. There are 11 fully contolable characters with completely different fighting styles, there are dozens of spells, summons, support materia, 10+ mini games.

This is an absolutely massive project which is why they never even considered releasing it all in 1.
 
Anyone who thinks this is solely about data size and doesn't at all have to do with selling multiple episodes to players who are practically guaranteed to buy them is fooling himself or herself.
 
They actually said they're doing it so you don't play just the highlights.

Is that so? They mention the escape through Street 8 and that is a part of the highlight that is the infiltration and exfiltration of the first reactor.

I doubt the game is going to recreate every single moment, background, city, village, if they are going this way. I think it will be similar to FFX and FFXIII in structure, which makes it easy for episodic releases.
 
I was cackling when I sent this to my brother. Cackling. This is a hilarious move. It could still end up better then the original.
 
Yep. And it's not easy to create a huge fantasy world from scratch.

See that's my thing, this isn't a fresh game being built from scratch. Everything is set in place, they know which characters are already going to be in the game(They're going to redesign a few), Story is done with a few minor changes, they know what the game world and atmosphere is supposed to be like, they just need to figure out how to bring it up to modern day graphics and a new scope, music shouldn't be an issue, the battle system is being redone but this game shouldn't take more than 3 years at the most to be completed. Seeing Square Enix's track record recently though, that is unlikely going to happen, they will overcomplicate things and drag out the development and take at least 7 years to get full game out.
 
I doubt we're going to be able to run around Midgard in an open-world style, it will simply be divided into small sanbox areas expanding the original concept so we'll never be seeing the city in full, which is good since it is way too big for the game to reallistically show it to us.
 
Compare that to modern open world games, where its 1 big city, and multiple settlements some of which could be called towns.

Now expand that to modern day graphics, FF7 (1997) is still a pretty large world, not counting the different scenarios, quests, side quests etc.

Apart from Witcher 3, most open world games campaigns are not that story rich. Even Witcher 2 had more story beats than Witcher 3. What I think they aim with FF7 is creating a full fat linear JRPG experience WITH a open world quests and elements.
Uh, what? I'm pretty sure the the amount of side quests and dialogue in RPG's like the Witcher 3 and Fallout: New Vegas completely dwarf the equivalent amount in Final Fantasy 7. They have more locations too, with more content in them.
 
The original game never gave you full reign of the world map until you got the Highwind/Gold Chocobo- before that certain areas were always behind 'invisible walls', blocked off unless you had certain vehicle to go over rivers/terrain, or until you reached a certain point in the story- splitting the game into parts doesn't change this in any way - the same places will be accessible when you reach that point of the story, with the map data being in each disc. You will never see a town that isn't 'released yet' because you won't be at the point of the story where that is accessible yet, just like the original game.

Yeah that's absolutely correct. But that's assuming the first release incorporates areas like Junon which IIRC were before you get the buggy. But, regardless, like you said a river or forest can naturally make a barrier if necessary. We just have to be hopeful that the hints at Midgar being a lot more fleshed out are not implying that the entire focus is in that set piece, which is just an assumption, negative at best, and solely based on SquareEnix's recent actions as any indication.
 
Yes, but at final disc you can explore the whole world, which I doubt that you can do in the remake. Like in the last episode, how much data that would be if every are from previous episodes would be included?

Thats what I'm wondering as well.

Like the original FF9 comes in to mind.
When you've progressed to the 3rd disc or something,
majority of the villages are blocked with huge roots.
They had to do this plot wise since they couldn't fit everything in to one CD.

This might be the case for the final release of FFVII remake.

Looking at how detailed Midgar was, I also feel like the world map is going to be removed like some other people were saying. Yes Wticher 3 is a huge open world game, but when you're going to make the FFVII world map in that quality, its gonna be so much larger, its probably close to impossible.
 
i really dont think 1 Episode will = one disc was just looking at disc one and there is alot of stuff.

Midgar bombing mission
Sector 5 Slums
Wall Market
Sewer / Train Graveyard
Sector 6
Shinra Building
Travelling to Kalm
Chocobo Farm
Mythril Mine
Junon
Cargo Ship
Mount Corel
Gold Saucer
Corel Prison
Gongaga
Cosmo Canyon
Nibelheim
Rocket Town
Temple of the Ancients
Bone Village
Forgotten Capital

I can see them spliting disc one up into like 4 episode alone.... please look forward to it!

Umh, yeah, there's a lot of stuff here :|
Now I'm even more afraid, this remake will cost us like 700€ lol.
 
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