Naoki Yoshida, known as Yoshi-P and the director of Final Fantasy 14, has expressed skepticism about the feasibility of remaking Final Fantasy 9 as a single title.
Because it’s just not possible to make fully featured games anymore? Everything’s gotta be bite sized chunks for full price.
The FF7 Remake games have a lot more content than the respective parts of the original
And it honestly breaks the flow of the story sometimes compared to the original. Rebirth’s added content felt like busywork at times to make it seem like a bigger game than it actually is.
The Honeybee sequence in Remake is peak tho, and I’ll fight anyone that says otherwise.
Personally I’ve loved how much they have fleshed everything out. Like, Johnny was such a completely missable, non consequential character in the original and now he’s a prominent side character. Just one example of many where they’ve taken a small part of the original and they have added a ton of context or fleshed out content around it.
A lot of the stuff is optional too, which I think strikes a solid balance. If you don’t like the content and find it busy work, you don’t have to do it. If you do like it, it’s there for you to enjoy.
I’m usually with you on the “skip the quests you don’t like”, but it really doesn’t feel like an option for this series. Each of the remake games are priced at $70USD and it’s not even a full story, technically speaking.
It feels really bad to not do side content, because it feels like you’re not getting your “money’s worth” psychologically. But the side content varies so much in quality depending on the chapter that the game just feels like a drag. It especially sucks because the OG FF7 is such a well paced story IMO, with a good balance of action/plot vs silly downtime.
OG had three CD’s, three major acts, across a pretty epic journey. Breaking it up into three parts is really not that surprising.
Personally, I love the expanded development of characters like Jessie.
I don’t mind the expanding in Remake as much as Rebirth tbh. Remake’s does expand a lot of side character’s, but they feel relevant to the story. Marlene, Avalanche trio, hell Yuffie’s little side story, they’re all good additions. EDIT: ALSO Wall Market! Best addition by far.
Rebirth is where I think it went off the rails a bit. The game really feels unfocused with a lot of the side quests, and it really drags a bit until you get to the last quarter of the game.
Maybe it’ll feel better to revisit once we have the entire trilogy. But man, paying $70/ to play Rebirth feels a bit bad when it came out at the same time as the new Yakuza and Persona remake priced at the same point.
You know what’s fascinating about that?
I’m pretty sure that every CD had the entire game and all the art assets for every town / place you could enter on the world map. Every enemy. All the music.
The only difference between each CD was the FMV cutscenes contained on them.
At least that was the story / rumor at the time. For optimization they could have reduced the art assets and music to only areas you could enter at that point in the game, and only enemy models you would see, but supposedly that wasn’t the case.
Even still, I think there’s like over a dozen games based on and around ff7 out there. It’s a bit much. Remake the original!
It is a lot, haha
What do you mean by “remake the original”?
Have they ever remade a modern version of final Fantasy 1?
FF1 probably has the most remakes of any game in the series, and I believe Stranger of Paradise is a modern retelling of the original’s story. Not at all a remake though.
FF1 doesn’t really lend itself to FF7-style remake treatment, though. The Pixel Remaster is the most recent remake of FF1.
… They have been for like a decade?
Every one is mad because they’re greedily milking reruns and I’m just laughing because they clean skipped over FF8.
They know you can’t improve on a master piece.
Which is my favorite one. I never liked 7, it never grabbed me. But I loved 8.
Funny enough, it could benefit from a rewrite the most
Which is why they won’t do it. This is about easy money, not revisiting games that aged poorly and / or failed to live up to their potential when they originally came out to make a better and more modern experience while retaining the spirit of originals.
“Volume and Complexity: Yoshi-P noted that Final Fantasy 9 is a game with significant volume, encompassing various kingdoms, environments, and story elements. This complexity makes it challenging to fit into a single remake without substantial expansion and enhancement of its world.”
Because Lord knows there was never a time when we had multiple disks for a large game.
Go fuck yourself greedy fucking assholes… I’m sure they’ll pull some PS5 exclusive first bullshit too so they can milk every last cent possible…
It’s not about amount of discs. It’s about dev time. If it was one whole game they’d not only bloat the budget to dangerous levels, it’d likely be outdated by the time it’s finished and will either need to redo large parts of the game so it looks modern or release a game that looks like it should’ve released 5+ years ago.
Imagine if FFVII didn’t split up it’s remake, not only would we not have any of it right now. When the third part comes out it’ll all just look like a PS4 game on a PS6.
If you want to argue whether or not they should go balls to wall that requires them to make a series of games so large is infeasible as a single entry, and do something a bit more budget friendly like the original, then fair enough. But then it’d just be a remaster or something not that far removed.
It’s funny they say that, as if we haven’t played games like red dead that are much larger and more complex
I don’t think so on the PS5 exclusivity. SE said that it did not pay off in sales for XVI and I believe they said they weren’t doing that again
Eh the “PS5 first” angle for FF16 and the continuation of Remake underperformed, and they admitted it themselves. I think PS5/PC releases are the future for them, so they can make more money at launch with minimal porting issues.
I really hope so. I’ve been playing ff16 finally since it’s on PC and it’s really good. I absolutely love how dark the story is lol it deserved better treatment/exposure on PC
Because people liked the idea so much with FF7? /s
They’re gonna ruin it like the did 7…aren’t they?
How is 7 “ruined”? It’s still there, isn’t it?
Yup, they left the number 7 there alright.
They also left the original game where it was. If you don’t enjoy the remake: don’t play it.
Speak for yourself, I’ve been absolutely loving the 7 remakes.
I’m truly happy for you, to each their own… but the soulless, empty cash grabs that they turned them into, when all they had to do was port the original to modern graphics and maybe change the combat system (up for debate, not the issue here) is painfully obvious to any who look.
I would call them anything but soulless. I think the love of the game shines in every corner of the titles.
I find it odd that you admit people can have different opinions (“to each their own”), then in the same breath imply anyone who doesn’t agree with you is blind/not looking (“obvious to any who look”).
Whether you want to believe it or not, I grew up on original 7 and my brothers and I probably have thousands of hours between us in the game. I replayed the original on PS4 leading up to Remake, and replayed the original again on Steamdeck leading up to Rebirth. I think it’s fair to say I’m a fan of the original, and the remakes both.
It is possible for people to like stuff and it still be an empty, soulless cash grabs. We all have our guilty pleasures, and I’m not here to shit on anyone for liking it. I’m here to shit on greedy, corporate assholes who think they can just roll out a bullshit product and are entitled to our money.
I’m glad you were able to re-establish the nostalgia and love you had for the original through the remake. For many though, it wasn’t there. The empty maps, the story that just kind of rounded up to a big nothing burger… I appreciate the attempt I suppose, but this wasn’t it, and I fear they will repeat the same minimal effort cash grab on this one as well.
I feel like you have no idea what you’re even talking about… “Remake” is the title of that portion of the story, the game is basically a sequel to the original FF7. You clearly haven’t even actually played it
Edit: I like how you’re down voting me for an objective and verifiable fact. Nothing I’ve said here is false. If you dislike the game, then fine. But dislike it for the right reason. And it’s not reason that I replied to.
What? Is this true? FF7 remake is a sequel?
Or is this like sequel theory in that Rebuild of Evangelion could be a sequel to Neon Genesis Evangelion?
I find the entire FF7 remake thing too convoluted (like a soulless cash grab) so I’ve ignored it for the most part.
I don’t want to drop spoilers for anyone reading but it is a sequel. The “surprise” is that remake refers to the plot of the first part, not a description of the game.
It’s 100% a sequel. It does not replace the original.
Remake and Rebirth are so fucking good. They’re more than what I wanted because instead of just getting a basic removed remake in more than just name, I get a fucking sequel that expands upon so many aspects of the original. As a fan. Why wouldn’t you want more of what you love?
Not only that they’ve shown time and time again throughout the games so far that they hold so much reverence to the original and show it so much more respect than a beat for beat remake ever could.
The story changes are awful so far. Gameplay is good though
I disagree, not that much has really changed overall in the grand scheme, just in how and when it’s being told. We mostly just get more.
Like look at the upper junon section. We get everything that was there before, except we get this extra section with the seventh in between the parade and leaving for costa del sol (and the recruitment section just before the parade). Which looking back was one of my favourite bits, especially early on.
Why wouldn’t you want more of what you love?
…it’s not the game that I loved, not even close. I bought the first remake, got to the first boss, and uninstalled.
Square are dead to me.
The game you loved still exists, and the new ones let you spend a little more time in the world, fleshing out little moments from the original and lingering on them longer and giving these characters’ relationships time to actually breathe and grow more naturally.
I’m sorry it didn’t grab you from the first 15 minutes, you truly are missing out on some awesome moments and gameplay in my opinion. Obviously the latter being mostly subjective, but I do objectively think it’s the best action/ATB system that could’ve ever been implemented.
I never said the original ceased to exist, or complained about it, I said I don’t like the remake.
The battle system is obviously the very first thing that made me dislike it so I very much disagree that your opinion is objectively true.
I subjectively like it.
I objectively think it’s the best that could’ve been implemented for what it is, it being a blend of real-time combat but with the strategy of classic ATB turn based combat.
I think it made sense for 7. Midgar was the most interesting set piece and a ton of stuff happens there. But it’s only like 10% of the game.
Then you collect side characters like infinity stones and to through a bunch of their individual stories.
Then the actual story happens.
Also, 7 is popular enough to support the split up.
This doesn’t make sense for 9. Also, isn’t it supposed to be a 1 for 1 remake?
But they want more moneyyyyy 🥺
I don’t think it even makes sense financially. There’s not really a first part for people to get excited about compared to Midgar in 7. 9 is more of a full package game.
Mist Continent to Outer Continent for part one. They’ll beef up the escape sequence in Fossil Roo as the end of the first game.
They’ll add a bunch of filler and make Terra its own game.
Part three will be the endgame + the optional open world stuff before the endgame.
They’ll fit a part four by carving something else up too.
It’ll be a shame, too, since FF9 has a fun story and characters.
Oh not this shit again
Shit just make a live service with mtx if you want to fuck over wallets so badly.
Isn’t that how we ended up with Ever Crisis?
I would’ve liked a normal remaster of FF7 with that graphical style. Guessing we won’t ever get it.
Jumping rope about to be a whole chapter LET’S GOOOOOO /s
Remake 8 you cowards
Given that SE doesn’t seem to want to be at all faithful with their remakes, 8 actually makes the most sense as a game they can and should make big changes to.
How dare you. FFVIII is a flawless game with a perfectly straightforward story and plot and limited grind.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a sorceress to defeat, right after I optimally junction all of my GFs.
Chicken wuss.
Did they even finish the FF7 remake?
There are two 7 Remake games out, with one more on the way afaik.
Ah, so the answer is no, no it’s not done yet. Cool.
/s
To be fair, there’s never been a time when Final Fantasy 9 could’ve been a single game. It’s simply never been possible.
But it is.
If it had been, don’t you think Square could simply remake it in one game rather than splitting it into the multi-game saga that it always has been? It would never work!
i’m fine with that, honestly. i love the breakup of ff7 into three different pieces because it gives it more time to bake and tell a story instead of trying to fit it all in one game.
So far it’s a worse story than the original, and taking a decade to tell it doesn’t improve its enjoyment
They had so much filler too. The giant mechanical hand sitting on a junk pile in Shinra is cool as a bit of a background piece, but not as an entire puzzle corridor. The remakes are littered with little things like this that deliberately slow down the pacing in a not very meaningful way.
