By: Dave (@djdmob)
Yea, this wasn’t supposed to be my next article. My next article was to be about fanboys but I deleted the draft because I didn’t like how it was and I wanted to retype it. So, I decided that this would be my next article and will probably be the biggest article I will ever type on clickbliss. With that said, enjoy!
Final Fantasy VII, a game released in 1997 by Square (now Square Enix) for the original Sony PlayStation is one of the most popular video games of all time. This game was met with widespread acclaim upon release and still gets tons of praise to this very day. It’s also the best-selling game in the Final Fantasy series to date, pushing 9.8 million copies worldwide as of 2010 as well as the 2nd best-selling game on the PlayStation according to the Guinness World Records, only to be beat out by Gran Turismo with 10.85 million copies sold. It also helped the popularity of Japanese RPGs in the West. Today, tons of media has been released that was based on the world of Final Fantasy VII, from more video games to even a Full-length feature film.
However, since the PlayStation 2 era; a Final Fantasy VII remake has been in high demand by gamers and fans of the franchise but got even bigger after Square Enix showed the tech demo at E3 2005 which former Square Enix president Yoichi Wada said it was only intended only for technological demonstration purposes, showcasing the power of Sony’s then-upcoming PlayStation 3 and also went to state that Final Fantasy titles will certainly come to the platform which would later become the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy & Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.
To this day; the request of remaking Final Fantasy VII is still very high and continues to grow. Today, I’m going to be going through not just reasons why a Final Fantasy VII remake should be done but also why a remake should not be done and a few other things.
Let’s start off with why a Remake should be done.
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Fan demand
Love the game, hate the game or think it’s a flat-out bad idea to do a remake, you have to admit. The demand for a Final Fantasy VII remake is through the roof. I bet if you ask anybody that are gamers what they would want to see out of the Final Fantasy series today, 90% of the time, they’ll likely say they want a remake of Final Fantasy VII. The popularity of this game speaks for that.
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Money maker
With how popular this game is, doing a remake would be a huge cash grab for Square Enix. People have been saying that if Square Enix did a remake of Final Fantasy VII, they would literally “print money” and this also goes with the fan demand. If a remake was announced they open preorders, people will jump all over it. With this being the most popular game in the series, there’s no denying that this game will sell extremely well and Square Enix will make tons of money from it.
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Now, that’s all I can say about why Final Fantasy VII remake should be remade. Let’s move on to why it shouldn’t be remade.
How Square-Enix is today
When people look at what Square Enix is today and think of Final Fantasy, they look at Final Fantasy XIII which has become one of the most hated games in the series. Now to the people that do hate XIII… Do you want a remake of Final Fantasy VII after seeing a game like XIII? Hell, here’s a side note; suppadoopa loves the XIII trilogy (well, at least XIII & Lightning Returns) and even he doesn’t want a Final Fantasy VII remake as he told me during a Twitter conversation that we had several months ago. The fact is, the way Square Enix is today, if they went on to make a Final Fantasy VII remake, they would most likely mess it up and the game will turn into a massive disappointment. Remember people: This isn’t the same Square that we grew up to know and love. Keep that in mind. Like what suppadoopa told me “Hope you like hearing JENOVA updated and remastered in 2014 “Quality””. Yea, sounds promising, doesn’t it? I didn’t think so.
This game is overrated!
And now the Final Fantasy VII fans are going to want my head on a stick because how dare I say Final Fantasy VII is overrated, right? Look, let me get this straight. I do think Final Fantasy VII is a great game. I just feel the game gets way too much credit than it deserves and I feel some more credit should go to Final Fantasy VIII or Final Fantasy VI (or III as it was called on the Super Nintendo in the US) which is my favorite Final Fantasy game of all time and was my introduction to the series. The only reason why people love Final Fantasy VII so much is because for a lot of people, it was the first (and for some people in the world, the only) RPG that they ever played. Now, I’m not asking for Final Fantasy VI or VIII to be remade. Hell, I rather not see Square Enix remake VI. I think they should leave it alone.
Now, I do feel like Square Enix does play some fault in all of this. This will be a bit rant-ish but please hear me out.
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That damn tech demo
As I stated earlier in my article, people have wanted a Final Fantasy VII remake since the PlayStation 2 era. According to an interview Joystiq had with Final Fantasy VII director Yoshinori Kitase (which also was discussing the mixed reception of Lightning Returns and doing HD remasters, preferably the Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster), he felt that the PlayStation 3 tech demo of Final Fantasy VII was the right thing to do at the time. In my opinion, no it wasn’t. It just made people crave a Final Fantasy VII remake even more. Maybe they should’ve showed a tech demo of Final Fantasy XIII, it was in development in 2005, right? Hell, the development started in 2004 under the project name “Colors World”. Maybe they could’ve showed us what a then-next gen Final Fantasy game would look like at E3 2005 that didn’t involve Final Fantasy VII. Oh well, too late now.
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Beating around the bush
Oh man, when it comes to Square Enix ever discussing the possibility of a Final Fantasy VII remake, they are professionals at beating around the bush in a very dumb and retarded way, complete with dumb excuses and unreachable goals. We’ve heard excuses like it would take them 10 years or more to develop a Final Fantasy VII remake, they would have to be dedicated to do a project like this and that the development would cost money. It’s almost like Square Enix thinks we’re stupid to not know this type of stuff. First off, it wouldn’t take you 10 years or more to remake Final Fantasy VII. That’s just a silly thought process. The game is already made. All you need to do is use a more modern engine like the Crystal Tools engine that you used to make the XIII trilogy and there you go. Next up, we all know you need to be dedicated to do anything. Hell, I had to dedicate time and effort into making this article which is turned out to be insanely long. Lastly, we know making a game costs money since every single game that gets made has a budget. This isn’t news to us, Square Enix. We know that it’s common sense in game development that making games cost money. Seriously guys, just stop beating around the bush. Stop putting that damn carrot in front of the horse. All this does is piss off the fans.
It’s time to close this up with one last thing from me. To Square Enix: Make up your mind here. Are you going to remake Final Fantasy VII or not? If you’re not, just say that and that ONLY. Don’t be adding in additional crap like how long it would take to do this remake, you have to be dedicated to remake a game like this, it will cost money to develop and the newer games will have to exceed the quality of the original. All that does is keep people craving for a remake even more and at the same time, pissing people off. This is one of the reasons why so many people are starting to hate you nowadays, Square Enix. Truth is, I wouldn’t mind a remake of Final Fantasy VII BUT like everything else, it has to be done right and I think the way Square Enix is today, they should NOT remake Final Fantasy VII. I say leave it alone and I already said that I feel like the game is overrated. Move on to Final Fantasy XV. Sure, even if you say a Final Fantasy VII remake is never happening, the demand will still be there but more people will also start to accept that this remake will never happen. Some will probably tell that me that Square Enix might be considering a remake but they’re approaching it very cautiously because if they do a remake and mess it up, they will probably deal with a massive shitstorm of gamers and that does make sense and that just adds more of a reason to not do a remake of this game.