Introduction
The launch of 1997’s Final Fantasy VII on PlayStation signaled a seismic shift within the online game panorama. The transition from pixel artwork to totally animated laptop graphics was a large sufficient leap forward, however the great thing about this basic title was way more than pores and skin deep. Featuring a stellar forged of beloved characters, a rock-solid fight system, and a narrative with the potential to instill feelings starting from awe and pleasure to grief and anger, the legacy of Final Fantasy VII is well-established within the RPG style and the video games trade as a complete.
In the many years since, expertise has advanced, as have tendencies. What was as soon as the top of expertise and visible constancy now seems dated, and the attitudes of contemporary avid gamers look extra in the direction of motion than the normal RPG fight featured within the authentic Final Fantasy VII. But the love for Final Fantasy VII, its world, its message, and its characters by no means light. And followers started clamoring for a contemporary tackle the basic.
That prevalent fan request was lastly met in 2020 with Final Fantasy VII Remake, the primary of three components reimagining the occasions of Final Fantasy VII with fashionable visuals and gameplay. The vital acclaim and robust fan reception confirmed that Square Enix wasn’t taking the duty of remaking its beloved RPG frivolously. With the second half, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, on the horizon, we flew to Tokyo, Japan, to satisfy with Square Enix, get our fingers on the sport, see unique gameplay, and discuss to core members of the event workforce about why this second entry is upping the ante in practically each approach.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for the unique Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII Remake.
Remaking FF7
The Prelude
The floor beneath Square Enix’s Tetsuya Nomura’s toes trembled. In his time since serving as a personality designer and visible director on Final Fantasy VII, his legend has grown considerably. In addition to engaged on practically each acclaimed Final Fantasy sport since, Nomura additionally helped create the Kingdom Hearts sequence and has turn into a figurehead and luminary throughout the stacked ranks of Square Enix’s steady of builders. But this 2015 journey to Los Angeles, California, was completely different.
PlayStation’s E3 2015 livestream had simply revealed a teaser trailer that includes the long-lasting Final Fantasy VII protagonist, Cloud Strife, strolling by Midgar in superb, fashionable, HD graphics. The dream of so many followers – a contemporary remake of the basic RPG – was lastly realized. The followers weren’t the one ones feeling the load of the second, although, and it was now not simply the bottom that was shaking; it was Nomura’s complete physique.
“There were no staff members around, so I was kind of just off to the side, standing there alone,” Nomura says. “When I heard the cheers from the crowd and the passion, I became overwhelmed, and I started shivering. I was walking like a fawn, just overwhelmed by the intensity of the crowd. I thought, ‘This has become such a big deal,’ and I wanted to cry.”
The street to this second was lengthy and arduous however one thing Nomura had dreamt of for years. Operating as a workforce of 1, Nomura had spent a part of the 2000s imagining what a contemporary remake of Final Fantasy VII might appear like. Unfortunately, not a lot progress was made since the remainder of the workforce members had been tied up with different tasks.
Around that point, followers began clamoring for a modernized remake of Final Fantasy VII, and the builders started listening to about it from media members. Yoshinori Kitase, who has labored at Square Enix since 1990, serving as director on beloved video games like Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, the unique Final Fantasy VII, and Final Fantasy X, was inundated with questions throughout a sequence of 2009 interviews.
“We were on the U.S. media tour for Final Fantasy XIII, and we took on a bunch of interviews, and we got a ton of questions from reporters asking, ‘When are we going to make a Final Fantasy VII remake?’” Kitase remembers. “Just hearing that so many times, I did think that we would do it one day, that’s for certain.”
Kitase returned to Tokyo and approached Nomura about making it a actuality. As two of the creators of the unique Final Fantasy VII, they observed the writing on the wall; fan and media demand was at a fever pitch, and Square Enix was starting to embrace the concept of contemporary remakes for traditional video games greater than ever earlier than. They knew they needed to act.
“Within Square Enix, gradually, remakes were being made, and these ideas for remakes were coming up in other departments,” Nomura says. “If we weren’t going to do Final Fantasy VII, others were going to do it, so we had to rise up and do it! We had the sense that we had to guard Final Fantasy VII and have to be the ones taking this on or someone else is going to do it. I thought it may be a bit troublesome if other teams without us took on the project.”
Nomura and Kitase are a pair of legends throughout the Final Fantasy and Square Enix fandom, however they wanted assist to make it a actuality. To create the workforce, the duo tapped into Square Enix Creative Business Unit I, the group traditionally chargeable for lots of the most beloved Final Fantasy titles. Kazushige Nojima, who joined Square Enix in 1994, engaged on video games like Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and X, in addition to the Kingdom Hearts sequence, and Motomu Toriyama, who joined Square Enix in 1995 and labored on the unique Final Fantasy VII along with Final Fantasy X, XIII, and extra, signed on to co-write the remake.
“I had always hoped to be a part of the title if and when a remake was to be made,” Toriyama says. “I was very happy when hearing the news [that we were making one].”
But the event workforce behind this challenge couldn’t simply be members of the unique dev workforce; most had left the corporate or had been engaged on different tasks. “I would say the majority of the dev staff and production members are those who were players of the original, not creators,” Toriyama says.
Two of these builders who began as followers of the Final Fantasy sequence earlier than becoming a member of Square Enix are Naoki Hamaguchi and Teruki Endo. Hamaguchi joined Square Enix in 2003, engaged on titles like Final Fantasy XII and the XIII trilogy. After serving as challenge supervisor on the cellular title Mobius Final Fantasy, he joined the Remake workforce as a co-director. Endo obtained his begin within the late 2000s at Capcom, working totally on the Monster Hunter sequence, however when he heard a couple of remake for Final Fantasy VII, as a fan of the unique, he couldn’t resist becoming a member of the workforce as battle director.
“I was working for another gaming company when I heard they were looking for members to be involved on the battle side of creating this game and felt like this was a great opportunity in which I could utilize the skills that I had gained thus far working in the industry,” Endo remembers.
With the core workforce assembled, Final Fantasy VII Remake was underway.
Making of Remake
Remaking a Classic
When a sport is as beloved as Final Fantasy VII, modernizing it with out alienating followers of the unique could be a difficult proposition; for those who maintain issues too near the unique, then you definately don’t sustain with the most recent tendencies, squandering the chance to create one thing distinct. Conversely, for those who push issues too far-off from the supply materials, you danger alienating those that made Final Fantasy VII so well-known within the first place.
According to Toriyama, the members of the workforce who skilled VII as followers, like Hamaguchi and Endo, are extra protecting of the supply materials than those that labored on the unique title. Kitase anxious these youthful workers members can be too loyal to the unique title, however his considerations eased as soon as the workforce began working. “This concern was all for naught because this was clearly not true,” Kitase says. “We were able to work together very well and realize all of our visions and a game that can be accepted and enjoyed by contemporary users, so that was wonderful.”
The workforce labored collectively to stability the previous with the brand new, to create one thing that definitively retells the story of Final Fantasy VII with fashionable conventions whereas not going too far in both path. “For me, it really comes down to considering what it was that the players enjoyed and loved in the original title,” Endo says. “Of course, we expect a variance in each player’s depth and span of what they enjoy and the things that they love, but at the end of the day, I do have to trust my own instincts and thoughts on what I loved and enjoyed playing the game.”
For Endo’s half – the battle system – he opted to mix motion with the extra conventional Active Time Battle (ATB) mechanics from the unique sport, by which characters can act as soon as a meter fills. The outcome appeals to each new and longtime gamers. “Seeing that the Final Fantasy series has a strong focus on its characters, I believe the action enhances this and lets the players be further immersed into the characters as they play,” Endo says. “Along with the strategic battles that I believe are key to Final Fantasy VII, I wanted to see how best I could mix these two elements of the command and strategy-based battle with the action that allows for that instant immersion.”
Though Endo needed to introduce motion, his want to stability it with the normal ATB parts struck a chord with Nomura. “I do have this idea of how Final Fantasy battles should be and should feel,” Nomura says. “We want to still keep this strategy element, in which the player will consider the elemental weaknesses of enemies during battle while using these action moves and being engaged, intact. That was always my core belief in how we should approach Final Fantasy battles. […] I thought this was truly vital to this game; I didn’t want it to be a game where it’s a reflex-type action or reflex-based battle; we wanted to combine all of these elements.”
The battle system of Final Fantasy VII Remake garnered acclaim, nevertheless it’s not the one piece of the title that modified. The visible leap ahead is instantly recognizable, and the story obtained quite a few upgrades. Instead of retelling your entire Final Fantasy VII arc in a single sport, Square Enix opted to launch the remake within the type of three video games. The first title, Final Fantasy VII Remake, retold the get together’s preliminary push by Midgar – a bit of the unique that takes about 6 hours to finish – throughout a 30 to 40-hour title.
This choice got here from Nomura, who recognized early on that absolutely capturing the occasions of Final Fantasy VII in a contemporary approach and with sufficient depth to do the story justice wouldn’t be attainable in its authentic one-game kind, to not point out the drastically completely different format the sport takes following the get together’s emergence from Midgar. “To recreate the world of Final Fantasy VII as it was in the original today in its full volume, the only way for us to realize this was to divide the titles or else it simply was not possible,” Nomura says. “We had to divide it, or we can’t do it right.”
Final Fantasy VII Remake’s prolonged keep in Midgar absolutely fleshed out characters beforehand relegated to minor roles like Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie and additional developed the personalities and relationships of the primary characters like Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and Aerith. “When the remake project was first decided, at that point, we had already felt that if we are going to take on this series, it’s imperative that we depict the characters much deeper,” Nomura says.
Final Fantasy VII Remake was launched on PlayStation 4 on April 10, 2020, incomes an 87 out of 100 on opinions aggregator Metacritic, together with an 8.75 out of 10 from Game Informer. And now, with the standard bar set excessive and fan expectations even larger, that very same workforce units out to push the well-known story ahead as Cloud and his buddies step outdoors of Midgar and enterprise into a large world stuffed with journey and intrigue within the second act of the Remake sequence, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
Rebirth’s Changes
Breaking Out
Following the occasions of Final Fantasy VII Remake, Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Barret, and Red XIII have escaped from the restrictive confines of Midgar. This precisely displays the development of the story and format within the authentic Final Fantasy VII, because the get together emerges from Midgar’s shut quarters and linearity and into an open and explorable world map.
The longtime Final Fantasy builders have had this in thoughts ever since Final Fantasy X modified how adventures on the earth progress. “We started off expressing this world that you can venture through with a world map; that was how it was starting with Final Fantasy I,” Kitase, who serves as producer on Rebirth, says. “But starting with Final Fantasy X, when we entered into this real-time 3D world, this is when the world map development ceased or halted to some degree. With X, it was the style where a player chose a point or an area they would like to go to and traveled there. In that sense, the feeling was that, since it’s real-time 3D, it’s not quite possible to create this full world map anymore.”
While Final Fantasy XV did transfer nearer to the unique world map imaginative and prescient when it was launched in 2016, Kitase assumed that Hamaguchi, serving as co-director on Rebirth, would need to proceed with that conference of different current Final Fantasy titles. However, they each felt it could be a disservice to the unique to not embrace an interconnected world map for gamers to discover, significantly as soon as the journey opens up a lot within the portion depicted in Rebirth.
The workforce members, together with artistic director Nomura, had been pleased to listen to the world map was again, permitting gamers to freely discover the huge, open wilds within the authentic sport. “Ever since the world map disappeared, I really had this weird feeling, and I always thought it was strange without a world map,” Nomura says. “I thought that you can’t really have an RPG without a world map, and specifically for Final Fantasy VII, to fully experience this world, we must have a world map; we can’t be without it.”
The ensuing journey in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a vastly completely different expertise that options monumental, explorable areas and pushes gamers towards facet content material. “Seeing that Remake is set in the world of Midgar, in which the player can explore within that area, we leaned heavily on story elements and were focused on a more narrative-driven game for Remake,” Hamaguchi says. “Now that we’re entering into the outside world and going forward in that direction, I have this desire to depict more of that feeling of exploration, and I very much feel that this was able to be accomplished for Rebirth.”
The openness of exploration is refreshing after the customarily corridor-like construction of Remake. According to Hamaguchi, gamers ought to anticipate finding a ton of facet content material. In truth, he estimates that roughly 80 % of the sport’s exploration-based content material is facet content material, whereas the mainline story makes up the remaining 20 %. If that makes you are worried that Rebirth lacks story content material, Hamaguchi says you possibly can calm down; even merely specializing in the primary storyline, he estimates it’s going to give gamers round 40 hours of gameplay. Meanwhile, for those who deal with an honest quantity of the facet content material, gamers can anticipate to spend round 60 hours in Rebirth, whereas probably the most devoted sidequesters can stay up for upwards of 100 hours of content material.
But it’s not content material bloat to inflate these playtime hours. When I ask Hamaguchi for his favourite RPG outdoors of the Final Fantasy sequence, with out hesitation, he names The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, CD Projekt Red’s 2015 masterpiece that many think about one of many biggest video games of all time. That title is understood for its significant facet content material, which is so sturdy that its storylines generally even match these of the primary story.
“Regarding titles like The Witcher 3, which has that open-world role-playing type element, we did some extensive research into these types of titles and looked at it as a baseline in which Rebirth should be a type of title that can stand alongside it and have the type of content that would be satisfying to its players,” Toriyama says.
Those who performed Final Fantasy VII Remake will acknowledge one of many distinguished sidequest givers: Chadley. The younger researcher as soon as once more desires your assist studying about Materia, and he’ll reward you with further summons. As you progress by the world, he asks you to look into sure happenings by occasions referred to as World Intel. During my hands-on session, Chadley requested me to seek out and defeat sure enemy varieties as I journey by the sprawling open panorama. With every drawn-out battle, I obtain facet targets to finish that can assist additional Chadley’s analysis.
The rewards sound price it, however from every little thing I hear from the builders, the story stands out as the driving pressure behind pushing gamers to sidequests. To make facet content material extra significant, Square Enix expanded the affinity system. This under-the-hood mechanic takes your actions in the direction of a personality and interprets them into how sure scenes play out. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s facet content material is a vital driver for this mechanic. Each facet quest brings in a secondary protagonist from the get together. Completing a facet quest improves Cloud’s affinity with the given character.
I witnessed this firsthand in an unique hands-off demo as Cloud and his get together journey to the Crowʼs Nest, a city that wasn’t within the authentic sport. This sister city to Under Junon options simply as many anti-Shinra residents, so as soon as they discover out Cloud and his buddies are in Avalanche, they welcome them with open arms. In my demo, because the get together returns to the city, the Crowʼs Nest’s residents greet them with cheers. This is as a result of the workforce simply accomplished a facet mission the place they retrieved an merchandise for one more resident. After taking a stroll across the space, Cloud talks to an individual who informs him of a mercenary working out of a close-by lighthouse. Of course, Cloud decides to analyze.
Exploration
On the Road Again
In the unique Final Fantasy VII, the mountains round Junon stop you from passing, however Cloud is way nimbler in Rebirth and might climb up and down ledges to succeed in the specified areas. In addition, gamers also can name Chocobos to experience and ease traversal. As you journey by the varied areas, you encounter completely different Chocobo varieties, every with distinct talents. One class can fly, whereas one other can use jet propulsion to hover over water. The Chocobos on this space are referred to as Mountain Chocobos and might scale particular partitions to succeed in excessive ledges or descend quickly.
On the best way to the merc, I get a way of the battle types of the 2 new get together members. Red XIII is agile and fast and makes use of the guard mechanic to fill a meter for his new Vengeance Mode, which will increase his pace and assault energy. Meanwhile, Cait Sith brings probably the most distinctive fight fashion but to the Remake sequence, together with strikes that play off the luck mechanic from the unique sport. Cait Sith can combat individually or summon a Moogle to experience round on. When on the Moogle, Cait Sith has a wholly separate moveset than when he’s solo, equivalent to a Moogle Mine assault, the place bombs unfold throughout the battlefield. He also can dismount and use his solo strikes, whereas Moogle will proceed attacking as managed by A.I. Moogle has a separate HP meter, and if he takes an excessive amount of injury, he’ll vanish till Cait Sith summons him once more.
After reaching the lighthouse, gamers meet Kyrie, a personality initially showing within the Final Fantasy VII novel The Kids Are Alright: A Turks Side Story, however who has since appeared in Remake. In Rebirth, she’s making an attempt to get her new mercenary enterprise off the bottom, however she isn’t probably the most well-equipped for the job, so she pops up around the globe, and it’s as much as you to help her.
After questioning why no prospects have come to acquire her providers, the get together realizes that the theme music she’s been taking part in attracts enemies, which has scared off any potential purchasers. In this case, it’s a sequence of Flans adopted by extra highly effective White Mousses. Hamaguchi, who’s taking part in the demo for me, takes the chance to name Titan, one among Rebirth’s summons. The hulking creature joins the get together in battle, tearing by the White Mousses and serving to full the mission.
Red XIII is the secondary protagonist for this mission, and because of his animal-like look, Kyrie desires to make him her pet. Obviously, he shoots her down, and as she runs off to her subsequent publish, Red XIII seems at Cloud and remarks, “I wouldn’t wish her on my worst enemy.”
Cloud and Red XIII’s affinity will increase for finishing this mission, doubtlessly affecting story beats and facet content material. “We wanted to give players the freedom of choice in deciding whether they wanted to dedicate themselves solely to the main storyline and, like, no side quests at all,” Hamaguchi says. “Or there might be people who want to delve into the side content and go really in-depth into the character relationships and understand the story deeper, or just the balance of those two. We wanted to give that freedom.”
Another approach you possibly can enhance affinity is through the use of a Synergy Ability between two characters for the primary time. These two-character assaults use a Synergy Gauge that fees whenever you use ATB for a personality. Each potential character pairing has a Synergy Ability with a customized animation and impact. For instance, pairing Cloud and Cait Sith ends in one of many zaniest assaults the place the Moogle grabs Cloud’s Buster Sword whereas Cloud rides on its again. I beloved seeing what every mixture resulted in and these further strikes add further layers of nuance to an already-stellar system. But most significantly, the notion of Synergy Abilities performs right into a central theme of Rebirth, which is the deepening of the relationships between the get together members.
Sephiroth
The One-Winged Angel Returns
But it’s not simply the get together members whose backstories and relationships are explored additional. Sephiroth, the primary antagonist, additionally has a extra important function this time. “Remake covers your encounter with Sephiroth, and now within Rebirth, we wanted to make Sephiroth into this very clear antagonist and target for the characters to go and pursue throughout their journey in Rebirth,” Kitase says. “Within the original game, Sephiroth is not seen very much within the world map, but in this title, we put this element forward.”
During a hands-on sequence, I performed by an prolonged model of the flashback, which options Cloud and Sephiroth teaming as much as discover Mt. Nibel and discover the mako reactor. At this level within the story, Sephiroth remains to be a heroic determine, and Cloud is a naïve and inexperienced Soldier, so the 2 are teaming as much as full this mission. Meanwhile, a younger Tifa serves as a information however not a celebration member. Sephiroth is a robust pressure, slashing by enemies and dealing great injury with the Masamune. He’s not fairly as overpowered as he was within the authentic sport’s corresponding flashback, however he’s a blast to play. Even although Sephiroth’s solely playable in a tiny a part of the sport, they invested in creating his gameplay, even giving him a Synergy Ability with Cloud.
“When developing Sephiroth as a character who players are able to control in a limited area, we’re still considering that you’re able to play as this very iconic character,” Endo says. “Taking this into mind, I really took care into providing the sort of resources and cost as equal to those of other playable characters into developing Sephiroth in a battle sense.”
The workforce had to make use of warning when approaching its dealing with of Sephiroth. After all, he’s one among gaming’s most iconic and influential antagonists, so naturally, followers shall be sensitive about any substantial adjustments. “We felt it was necessary to have this very clear depiction of how he came to be the person that he is now in Rebirth,” Hamaguchi says. “Even as a developer creating this game, seeing Sephiroth discover the truth and fall further and further into darkness – like falling from grace – and depicting this in his expressions and actions, I could truly feel bad for him. Throughout the course of Rebirth, I believe players will not only grow to relate to and understand Cloud, but also Sephiroth through this game much more.”
Seeing Sephiroth’s rise to prominence as a extra highly effective adversary to Cloud and the remainder of the get together will probably result in a extra impactful depiction of the occasions the place Rebirth’s story involves a detailed: the occasions on the Forgotten Capital.
The Iconic Scene
Reborn Only to Die?
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth could characteristic facet content material and minigames galore, however the primary story will undoubtedly depart its mark. Since Rebirth brings the story as much as the purpose the place the get together reaches the Forgotten Capital, gamers might want to reckon with Aerith’s story arc after taking part in a sport constructed round deepening the connections between the get together members. When I requested the event workforce about this scene, the beforehand jovial temper dropped right into a somber state. While the workforce is tight-lipped about how the occasions will play out, it insists it has achieved one thing that can shock even the gamers who’ve performed by the scene in query a number of instances.
“Beginning with the original Final Fantasy VII, when we had started working on it, it was already decided from the get-go that ‘life’ would be the central theme surrounding Final Fantasy VII,” Nomura says. “I knew that we had to depict life and death within this title. Prior to Final Fantasy VII, there have been other titles where characters have experienced tragedy, but many of them have come back or been revived in some way. But I believe that loss is something that happens unexpectedly, and it’s not something so dramatic or drawn out, but is something in which a person that you have just conversed with is suddenly gone and never to come back. I believe that the person who dies should not return in this title, and that is what we did with the original.”
Those aware of the scene know all too effectively the emotional influence the occasions might have with deepened relationships and a lot better technological capabilities to precise the total scope of the occasions. The approach the builders tease the way it performs out, I can’t assist however be curious and speculate about the way it may differ from the unique. After all, the Whispers that helped management the destiny of Remake are gone; perhaps issues can play out in a different way this time. Or maybe I’m simply setting myself as much as be damage once more.
Much just like the characters within the Final Fantasy VII Remake sequence, who’re now not ruled by predetermined destiny, the builders discuss as if the probabilities in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth are countless. And after what Square Enix completed by Final Fantasy VII Remake and the way the workforce explains its strategy to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, I’m inclined to imagine them.
This article initially appeared in Issue 362 of Game Informer
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