Tag Archive

Today Marks Final Fantasy VII’s 20th Anniversary (In North America)

Posted on September 7, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

The adventures of Cloud, Barrett, Aerith, Tifa, Yufi & Co pass the two-decade milestone today as Final Fantasy VII was released on September 7th, 1997 for the original PlayStation. Marking the franchise’s jump to the 3rd dimension for the first time alongside an intricate battle system and breathtaking pre-rendered cinematics  – FF7 became a landmark title for not only Square Enix but the PlayStation brand as a whole.

In the past 20 years, Final Fantasy 7 has been re-released on a number of platforms including Dreamcast (unofficially through 3rd party emulation), PC (1998), PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Vita, Steam and most recently on iOS. What took an entire console to render two decades ago can now be played in the palm of your hand!

Several FF7 spin offs have also been released following its breakout success – to mark the 10th anniversary of the game, Square Enix commissioned an entire multi game project called “The Compilation of Final Fantasy 7”. This compilation included:  Before Crisis for the PSP, After Crisis for Mobile Devices and Dirge of Cerberus for the PlayStation 2. The 10th-anniversary celebration is also well known for bringing us the Advent Children feature film and the Final Fantasy 7: The Last Order anime as well.

Recent efforts have focused on remaking FF7 for the PlayStation 4 but despite an announcement at E3 2015 little has been shown from the HD upgrade. It doesn’t help that Square moved development of FF7’s episodic rebirth from external developer CyberConnect2 to a brand new in-house team. It is unknown if Square Enix will keep the direction that CC2 was going for with FF7:R – which from all accounts would have been a real time action title not unlike Final Fantasy XV, retelling the major story beats over multiple separate episodes.

Square Enix failed to mention today’s anniversary on either the official English language Final Fantasy twitter account or the twitter account for Square Enix USA.

0

The Wait For The Final Fantasy 7 Remake Just Got Longer

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

Final Fantasy VII remake

Fans who had expected to play the Final Fantasy VII remake this year for the game’s 20th anniversary might be a little disappointed with the news that the game has yet to enter full production at Square Enix.

Speaking with Japanese gaming publication Famitsu director and long time Final Fantasy character director Tetsuya Nomura stated that while progress is being made on the title (and Kingdom Hearts III) the development of the FF7 remake is different from other titles the company has worked on in the past.

Square Enix has never directly provided a release date for the Final Fantasy VII remake which will be released episodically. Many fans simply assumed that when the game was announced back at E3 2015 that we would see at least episode one by the games 20th anniversary. The most recent Final Fantasy title, Final Fantasy XV began life as a pet project of Nomura’s Final Fantasy Versus XIII where it languished in development for over a decade before finally seeing release under the direction of Hajime Tabata from September 2014 forward.

Here is a translated quote from the recent interview:

“We’re making steady progress on its production. While we are indeed working on it, I think we’ll have you guys wait a little longer for both Kingdom Hearts III and Final Fantasy VII Remake.”

[Source]

 

0

Final Fantasy VII Remake Will Follow In The Footsteps of Final Fantasy XIII

Posted on April 11, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Final Fantasy VII remake

Last week we brought you ton of news about Square Enix’s upcoming Final Fantasy XV but that wasn’t the only game that producer Yoshinori Kitase discussed. Kitsae also gave readers an insight into how the team’s approach to remaking the 19 year old classic Final Fantasy VII.

He pointed out that when Square announced the multi-part remake that fans were confused about how the developer would stretch the story across multiple games. Kitsae points out that allowing events to unfold from multiple points of view that the XIII series did well. Here’s the direct quote:

 “When the project was first announced, people were confused by its multi-part nature, but the goal is to structure it more like Final Fantasy XIII than an episodic series.”

He also said:

 “It will essentially be a full scale game for each part of the multi-part series. In XIII, each instalment told the story from a different angle. It was kind of like approaching an unknown territory in a sense.”

[youtube id=”A3sBZ5Nr4hc”]

Are you excited for the Final Fantasy VII remake for current generation consoles? If Square Enix follows through with their multi-game promise hopefully we’ll get the first game next year for FF7’s 20th anniversary. We should see the subsequent entries a few years apart if the FFXIII release model holds true.

[Source]

0

Final Fantasy VII Remake Details Revealed in Famitsu

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Broken Joysticks

Final Fantasy VII remake

The new issue of Famitsu, the famous Japanese gaming magazine, has revealed new info about the Final Fantasy VII remake. Most notably, the game will have more focus on Biggs, Wedge, and Jesse, as well as a fully explorable Midgar.

Square has been slowly dripping out info regarding the remake of the classic game, and not all of it has been received positively. In recent gameplay footage, the new battle system was revealed which does away with much of the turn-based elements of the original game in favour of a system resembling that of the FF XIII series. There has of course also been the decision to split up the game into “episodes”, which will be sold separately. There has been no word on how many of these episodes there will be.

It’s hard not to be sceptical of the Final Fantasy VII remake considering what a terrible, terrible, terrible company Square Enix has become. Seemingly second only to Konami in how disconnected it is from the fanbase that still tries its best to support it. Having said that, I don’t think the decision to radically change some of the content from the original game is a bad one. If you want to justify selling this thing for more than 60 dollars, splitting it up into multiple parts, you better have some new content to justify it. Give me more of the city to explore, give me cyberpunk chocobo races, GIVE ME MORE DRESSES TO PUT CLOUD IN GODDAMMIT

*Coughs*

The point is, if Square Enix is going to get away with charging multiple times for a remake, it does need to add new content. Now of course, that is no guarantee that the new content will be good. This is modern Square Enix after all, but I really can’t fault them for trying to take the game in a new direction, especially since a port of the game has already been made available on the PS4 earlier this month for 15 bucks. It is already perfectly possible for folks to play the original game on modern consoles, so to justify the price tag, Square will have to do something radical. Let’s just hope that this new direction doesn’t turn out to be as bad as the previous six “new directions” Square Enix has tried over the past decade.

0

Extended FF7 Remake Trailer Shows Game’s Revamped Combat System

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Rae Michelle Richards

At the opening press conference from the PlayStation Experience Square Enix gave fans another taste of the still undated Final Fantasy 7 remake for the PlayStation 4.

In this brand new gameplay trailer we get a brief look at the game’s combat system, which from the small glimpse we’ve been given looks to borrow a lot from Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts. Gone is the overhead “world map” and transition screens that launch players into battle. In their place is a more streamlined action-RPG approach with real-time combat, abilities mapped to single buttons on the controller, and enemies appearing within the world.

Considering both of the above mentioned games are currently in development it wouldn’t be much of stretch to assume that the different development teams at Square Enix are sharing technologies to expedite progress.

Some fans have expected that Square Enix may release the Final Fantasy 7 remake sometime in 2017 to line-up with the original PlayStation game’s 20th anniversary.

What do you think of the trailer? Check it out below.

[youtube id=”QLYyWAqTTAo”]

0

Get the latest articles and news from BrokenJoysticks and a selection of excellent articles from other sources.

Simply fill out the form below and you’ll be on your way to getting our upcoming newsletter.