So there was this game made by then Square Soft (now know as Square Enix) that came out a few years back called Final Fantasy VII, maybe you’ve heard of it. It came out on the Playstation and was a huge hit. People loved the crap out of it and it is now a permanent fixture in gaming history.

Final Fantasy VII wasn’t a Final Fantasy VI but I still loved it and played the hell out of it. I still like FF VI more but that’s another article. Anyways now they are making Final Fantasy VII Remake and not just reworking the graphics but they’re remaking the whole damn thing. At least they have said that they’ll keep the same playable characters, like it would be FF VII with different characters!  ¹⁾This is the article I read that reported that there will be changes http://www.technobuffalo.com/2015/06/18/final-fantasy-vii-remakes-story-and-gameplay-to-be-tweeked/

So with them making it known that it won’t be the same game and they might even change the story some, it’s gotten a lot of people talking, including myself, so I figured why not rant and rave like everyone else on the internet.

Generic List

I guess I should start by saying what I liked and didn’t like about the game. This list is more about general things I liked so it’ll be short

What I liked

1. I liked the materia system.
2. I liked the break from traditional JRPGs, graphically speaking.
3. The story.

What I didn’t like:

1. Length of the game
2. Random battles

See, nice and short.

Things That Shouldn’t Change

Because I have an opinion on the subject I of course have expectations for the game, specifically removing the things I didn’t like. There is no way they are going to reduce the length of the game, which is OKAY I guess. The other issue, random battles, I’m sure they will be remove somehow. Most people don’t like them so it’s cool.

Things They Shouldn’t Change But Will.

It sounds like they might change the story, which is kind of stupid, depending on how much they actually change. They also will change the combat system, which isn’t a big deal, I liked the system just fine, but they are going for what they are calling modern gaming standards which kind of scares me…okay it scares the shit out of me. The last few non-MMORPG Final Fantasies have been nothing more than a somewhat interactive movie and I hated it, it was shit. No matter how good the story is for a video game if the game system telling is shit it’s going to be boring.

Then there’s the Materia, which this article ²⁾Here is the link to the article on TechnoBuffalo which got me to rant http://www.technobuffalo.com/2015/06/16/final-fantasy-vii-remake-managing-your-expectations-101/  claims it’s an archaic system and will need to be changed but I disagree, well it is archaic I guess, but it doesn’t need to be changed. It was a fun mechanic and can still be fun, I wish more games used a Materia like system, or even better yet Espers from Final Fantasy 6. I like being able to use items that gain their own experience and toss them around to different people. It’s great, no reason to change it.

Then there is the whole graphical scale issue which was also brought up in the article. Basically he’s saying they need to take the whole world, make it open and get rid of the world map and I say bullshit. Do they need to redo the graphics, well duh, but who says they can’t have a different scale for town travel and world travel. Just because games now don’t do that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. It fits the game just fine and could be worked into modern games more often.

Rant Wrap UP

My overall point is the game system and story doesn’t need a major over hall, people loved it precisely for those things. A few tweaks here and there, sure, but not a whole reimagining. I will admit I’d be less skeptical about the whole project if it was a different company. Squre Enix has had, at least in my opinion, a dismal record with both listening to fans and playing off their love of classic games. Sure they did alright a few times, but look at how they treated the movie sequel to FF VII, Advent Children. It was okay, but didn’t live up to the hype. I wanted it to be a cool CGI movie but they wanted to keep it “real to the game” and after they made the clean CGI they messed it by artificially degrading images and then made the movement choppy, to feel more like a game. It was a huge let down. The story was okay but not what I expected or wanted.

When first announced I thought to myself “I”m going to have to buy PS4” but the more I hear more about the remake, the less I think I’ll buy a system just to play this game. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t, it’s way, way too early to tell. Let’s just hope they don’t fuck it up this time.

P.S. Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger were and always will be better than Final Fantasy VII.