Final Fantasy series producer Yoshinori Kitase had a chat with Famitsu about the progress that his team is making on what it is one of the biggest projects that the company has ever faced: Final Fantasy 7 Remake. In the interview, Kitase talks about the new episodic structure, the battle gameplay, what parts of the original will be left untouched and how are they going to keep the public’s interest through all the development.
The Japanese Magazine also had a look at the new artwork presented for the game during yesterday’s 30th Anniversary Opening Ceremony of the franchise.
Kitase’s words make clear that the development of the game will still take a long time. According to him, they are working on the scene from the announcement trailer, which showed main characters Cloud and Barret in the streets of Midgar. “We can now see the line of quality that we’re aiming for more clearly, but there’s still a ways to go.”
In the past, project’s director Tetsuya Nomura has said that his plan consists on giving each episode the length of a full game, so it will not be possible to release each part a few months from each other. When asked about how will they keep up the interest of the public in the meantime, Kitase cited Final Fantasy 15 director Hajime Tabata’s approach to giving regular updates: “A live stream or a program to keep in touch with the users is something I’d like to do, but Final Fantasy VII Remake will be episodic, and if we want to have it go all the way to the end of the original version, then I believe we’ll need to devote everything we got for it, so I have no idea what will happen for things such as filler development [between episodes] and other works.”
That seems to eliminate the chances of another set of side-projects similar to the Compilation of Final Fantasy 7 released from 2004 to 2007, which included the film Advent Children and the games Before Crisis, Crisis Core, and Dirge of Cerberus.
Talking about the renewed battles, Kitase confirmed that Nomura and Mitsunori Takahashi, who has worked on the Kingdom Hearts and Dissidia series, have developed a solid version of the system they want to use for fights in the final game. However, despite the new gameplay style, the most popular aspects like the Materia system, used to learn new magic and skills in the original game, will remain untouched.
Finally, Kitase said that he would like to show some of the progress made on the game this year, in the form of a new trailer or even a playable demo. Famitsu also asked about the possibility of a Final Fantasy 6 Remake, to which Kitase answered “Right now, we’re working on Final Fantasy 7… The staff within the company are also saying [they’d like to remake it] but it’s on reserve.” A better HD port would be nice while we wait, Kitase-san.
You can take a look at the battle gameplay in the trailer below.
FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE – PSX 2015 Trailer
Published: Feb 1, 2017 04:08 am