During the PlayStation Experience keynote yesterday, Square Enix came out to announce that Final Fantasy VII, one of the most critically acclaimed video games ever and a game that people have wanted to see remade for almost two decades, will be coming to the PlayStation 4. As a port.
Yep, this is the PC version of Final Fantasy VII. In all of its blocky ’90s glory. Were you expecting something else?
Above: the trailer for Final Fantasy VII PC->PS4. And here’s the presentation from Final Fantasy producer Shinji Hashimoto, who set us all up for what might be the worst troll in recent video game history:
No HD remake here. We’re just getting the PC version to buy again on PS4. In spring 2015. For some reason. Thanks, Square Enix.
Fahey made this GIF that pretty much sums it up:
Comments
43 responses to “Final Fantasy VII PS4 Is The Ultimate Troll”
…..wut
Final Fantasy XV better be good Square Enix, cause I’m getting really sick of your shit.
It’s crazy. It would sell really well, and it can’t be that much extra effort to do, can it?
Yes, it would be a lot of effort.
First. All the character models would have to be overhauled from scratch. Reusing assets from say Advent Children is an option, but highly unlikely this is a cllick “Save As…” job. But say those are all set, you’ll have to design and create all the npcs and enemies as well, who weren’t in the movies or compilation games that did not get new models. On top of that, you can have the simple animation that was used on the low poly models of the ps1 era, you would have to create new animation for all characters and actions. It would be much harder to get away with a handful of canned animation. Conversations and cutscenes would require more acting and direction, another new thing to add to the to do list.
Next, environments. I highly doubt that you can get away with the static jpeg fixed camera. I’m guessing all the environments would have to be redesigned and rebuilt, as well as have at the very least, a slightly dynamic camera, even if still fixed to some extent, which would have to be done for probably every single instance. Unless of course you think its better they reduce the number of screen transitions and make everything more connected and persistent, in which case, they would require to overhaul pretty much every map.
Sound, its easy enough to overhaul music and sound effects. But how about voice acting, something that was lacking in the original? Add that to the list.
Then game mechanics. Again, not a simple matter of cut, copy paste into a new engine. It would definitely have to be rebuilt in some way, and even though there is a map for how the game should work there, would simply porting the same system into the new game work? FFVII’s game system was great, but it did have its downsides. And people, not even knowing it, will expect improvements. So, how could they do that? I have no idea, and I’m quite sure not many do, including the original developers. So here’s a bit of extra work.
Then you also have to consider your audience. Are there really enough hardcore fans out there to justify such a huge undertaking? You might think that everything I’ve described is redundant and all they really need to do is replace the old blockys with high-poly pretty models. But in order for this to be truly successful you WILL need to attract NEW players who may not be so forgiving and hardcore fans, which means you WILL NEED some of these more modern conventions ie. voice acting, dynamic cameras, modern rpg mechanics etc. Unlike PS2 HD remakes where most things are just upscaled, making a leap across TWO console generations isnt so easy.
What people want from the remake is to re-experience the emotion and wonder that the original inspired in us. However, you have to ask yourself, would simply just having the exact same game with better character models do that for you? These emotions it inspired came from the unknown, being surprised, experiencing something brand new and revolutionary. Experiencing the exact same thing again, but slightly prettier, will not likely have the same effect, even if its still great.
I’m already treading into TLDR territory, and i could go on and on, but this has been bugging me for a while. If they ever do make an HD remake, that’s that I want from it. It’s almost unreasonable, but I think that’s what would make it a success
Nintendo did it for The Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.
Microsoft did it for Halo 2.
It’d be worth it for Square Enix to remaster FFVII, no matter the effort.
FF7 is older, more difficult to remaster, and much, much larger in both scale and scope than both of those games. It’s unfeasible.
A remastered FF VII would probably sell enough copies to cover development for a 100% new game.
Would be enough for me go buy a PS4 as well.
It might also cause the biggest stir in gaming.
You know how feminism and gaming got married this year? Yeah, how does Square Enix upgrade Tifa without feminists complaining that she’s visually oversexualized, and without upsetting the core fans by giving her a longer skirt and a breast reduction?
please don’t remaster it. I want to keep the story clean and no voices. See what they have done to FF IV. Just authorize people having a PS4 to buy this game but never remaster it.
I’m no massive FF fan, if one at all. But with those remakes all they did was reuse the original games engines and added some extra shine. With a VII remake they’ll either have to remake the entire VII engine or use either XIII’s or XV’s engines.
And to add to littlejulesy’s comment, XIII on PC was 60 GB with dual audio uncompressed. Do you remember how much talking was in VII? And how many different environments there were? At a rough guess with 1080 cutscenes and dual audio for all, the game would be pushing 150GB to 200GB easily.
Squeenix would NEVER make a remake because it would be far too much work, take too much time and it would require multiple disks for even the XBone or PS4. If the game needs to be installed everyone would need to pretty much have an “internal” hard drive dedicated to just that one game.
Plus, with every fan base there’d be too much complaining with how it wasn’t made in their vision. Look at the VII movie, it wasn’t THAT bad.
It wouldn’t need to be anywhere near that size, XIII was only as big as it was due to extremely wasteful coding. A full 2/3rds of that size was taken up by the cut-scenes, which weren’t anywhere near high enough quality to justify it (720p). Unfortunately Square-Enix has a history of really crappy PC ports, but if the effort was put in there’s no reason a VII remake would need to be that large/larger, especially since if it stuck to the originals script there was drastically less cut-scenes over the course of the plot compared to XIII.
The fan-base part I completely agree with though and I’d put money on that being the most likely reason they’ve held off (that and the money involved compared to potential returns..). It’s simply been too long, the rose tinting is too strong and there’s too much hype. It would end up being another Duke Nukem Forever if they made it imo (And I loved FFVII)
Just incidentally, FFVII has hardly any cutscenes at all that run longer than a few moments. FFXIII had plenty. Most of VII’s scenes were done in game engine. But there’s nowhere near the amount XIII had.
But that 150 – 200gb is a completely arbitrary number you’re pulling out of your ass.
Zelda and Halo were largely texture and effect upgrades. Models, animations and all that sort of stuff was identical to the original.
Upscaling textures and changing FX is much, much simpler (even though time consuming) than the full HD “Remake” fans want for FF7.
You couldn’t just slap some HD textures on the cloud model for example and have it look good. It’d require remaking multitudes of assets from scratch, and then new textures to boot. Not to mention if they swapped to a full 3d environment, modeling and texturing what was previously pre-rendered still images for 90% of the game’s environments.
Plus tweaking of the mechanics to work in the new 3d game world ect.
Not only that, but FF7 is a game entirely devoid of voice acting, which worked for the game at the time but would feel ghostly and jarring in a full HD, realistic remake, so theres the (at least partial) voice acting to consider.
Honestly, to remake FF7 would require an entirely new engine (likely the engine they’re using for FFXV) and would require the entire game to be rebuilt. You’ve seen how long FFXV is taking to make (admittedly this may have a lot to do with poor direction), redoing 7 would mean taking the extra level of care to make sure the remake is faithful to the original or it will piss off more than it pleases.
I want an FF7 remake as badly as anyone (even if it looked like Crisis Core I’d be stoked), but there’s a reason square’s Previous Gen offerings were empty and largely panned. Making JRPGs on the Scale of something like FF7 is a MASSIVE task and it’s one that FFXV is trying to prove can even be done.
Okay well, how about this…
– 1080p resolution
– 60 fps
– The entire soundtrack redone and recorded using the Japanese Saito Kinen orchestra
– At least upgrade the colour range on the textures
All this can be done right now with the PC version and a few mods :S
The PSN version looks and runs fine for what it is, a simple resolution upscale and changing the soundtrack (this would be great though) to orchestral just isn’t what people really want though.
And your average gamer applies those PC mods onto the PS4, how…
The point being that the PS4 port is not what people want, in any way, shape, or form :S
Like I’ve been trying to iterate, the PS4 port is entirely unnecessary and inferior to what is already available. The game will struggle to attract new fans on PS4 due to its age to boot.
It’d require a mint to make a true remake, but honestly, if Sqenix want to make real money off FF7 again, they’ll have to rebuild the entire game from scratch.
Wtf are you talking about? People DO want a remake in ALL shapes and form! Do not talk like we do not want a remake. Also it WOULD generate a massive amount of new fans. Final Fantasy VII remake is enough to convince at least 1,000,000 people to go out and buy a PS4 for the sole purpose of that game let alone purchasing the game. Just quit far and wide ahead before you make yourself look retarded.
Majora’s Mask isn’t exactly getting totally overhauled, which is what people are expecting after that PS3 tech demo
Looks impressive to me.
http://i0.wp.com/www.nintendolinked.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Screen-Shot-2014-11-06-at-1.01.40-AM.png
I don’t need a reboot, like Tomb Raider 2013, I just want a refreshed original game.
The thing with the Majoras mask and OoT remasters is that they’re remasters.
The game already exists as a 3D environment with detailed character models and the like. Improving the Textures does LOADS to improve the look of those games (much like the Halo remasters).
But in neither case are actual character or environment assets being remade or rebuilt, which is what FF7 needs to start to look better. Putting better textures on Cloud would look ridiculous since he’d still have thumb-tacs for arms and a square head.
And rebuilding the characters would look wierd in relation to the static pre-rendered backrounds.
Yeah. I think due to how it created sort of a standard template for PS1 JRPGs people fail to realise just how crazy a Final Fantasy VII remake would be in terms of content. While the playable area isn’t that large in terms of a list of locations if you were to remake it in 3D rather than drawn backgrounds it would dwarf most MMORPG environments. They used a lot of creative shortcuts on the PlayStation that produced impressive results at the time but now stand as expensive hurdles to get over.
Even if you used those same creative shortcuts and just redrew all the backgrounds, kept the over-world models simple, kept the combat system 100% as is, didn’t include voice tracks or new FMV sequences, a Final Fantasy VII remaster is still a huge project. They had people working on those assets for years. It didn’t set records for development costs and fill two and a half CDs for nothing. =P
TL;DR they would have to remake the entire game at huge costs.
Yeah… they need to go to some communication/PR management classes for sure.
I am happy they’re not making a remake, however. They still have too much talent to spend years on a boondoggle.
That’s ridiculous. They are killing their own reputation. I have already bought the recent PC-comeback of FFVII in hopes of Square will see that there is still audience to sell a remake version. I feel I got a mockery from the developers… again. I hope their latest FF will cover this crowd-milking policy.
Maybe it’s the scene with all the shirtless men. Animating them in HD may be setting them back.
Hmm, they could make them really hairy and masculine: http://christaylor.8bitx.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/cloud-bathtime.jpg
My concern, is that if this is the PC version, won’t it have the god-awful PC version’s music….but with no way to mod the PS music in?
Why not just make the PS1 version already on the PSN available on PS4? :S
The recent PC update had remastered music. Think of it as better than the ps1 original NOT the god awful MIDI it originally got.
Still irritating how they classed changing midi to classic as a REMASTER. -_-;;
I guess it’s too bad Sony hasn’t ported over their PS1 emulator over to their new console so the version of FF7 already on the store can be played there?
Or an app that would allow those of us who still own the disc version to play on new hardware…
Oh yay, now I can buy the exact same game for the 4th time for some reason!
How many times are they going to port this game? Either give us the remake that everyone wants, or leave it the fuck alone.
There is absolutely no need for a PS4 version, especially when it is ALREADY ON PSN.
Except you can’t play the PSN version on PS4….but rather than making the PSN version playable on PS4 (and thus making it possible to play ALL the FF games on the PSN on PS4 in turn), they are porting over the PC Port to the PS4 instead :S
Haha, the absolutely stone faced crowd at the end of the demo, comedy gold.
They probably DID remaster the game in some tiny way. Like slapped a 1080p resolution on it, made it run at 60fps, then called it a day.
If it’s a 1:1 copy, however, then they’re just cash-grabbers.
Would the ps4 version have trophy support? I couldnt watch the video.
Actually, a physical re-release would be pretty aweome for die hard fans.
Given that every (non emulated, non demo) game on PS4 has trophies, I’d expect so.
The recent PC version has Steam achievements, so that’d be your trophy list right there. If I remember right half are things you won’t need to go out of your way to get (recruit character, use their limit break, complete a section of the story) followed by the end-game stuff (defeat each weapon, get to level 99, get each character final limit, etc).
I watched this live this morning. A FFVII remake is never coming. It would cost the earth and the staff needed are gone.
But. Buuuut. When the brand manager of Final Fantasy comes out on stage near the end of a conference when it’s time to drop the bombs and says FFVII on PS4 you let your guard down. Oh shit it’s actually happening! The logo lingers we salivate on this news then the trailer. Starting with the old visuals… okay kick in to the new stuff…. wait a minute squeenix… you cant be serious.
I wasn’t mad for a second.
The bait of switch of the was so epic I struggled not to wake MrsBS up with my laughter. Masterclass troll.
They pulled this with Vib-ribbon fairly recently too. Oh Sony.
You really do have to wonder what their thinking was with this. Did they do this as a joke? Did they honestly think people would be hyped for yet ANOTHER port of the exact same game from 1997? They know people want a proper remake. There’s been demand for it for years. So, what, they figured the best way to respond to the fans was to fly the series’ producer out to a big conference just so he can basically slap everyone in the face? Seriously, I’m not even a fan of Final Fantasy and I find this to be a completely dick move on the part of Squeenix.
Unless they release it on PSN for free..
Haha, who am I kidding? That’ll never happen
you people need to get over it 🙂 let them make new games and stop wasting their time on remakes and then maybe they would have time to make something that’s not garbitch.
Kotaku users are suddenly all game developing experts apparently.