Yeah, Uematsu would be the most obvious choice.
If he's tied in with Mystwalker, then Hamaguchi would probably be a good choice as well.

I wouldn't mind having Hamauzu taking a pass at it either, to be honest, provided he lays off the J-pop.

Would rather the remake be FFVII as a pixelated 8/16 bit game and have Disasterpiece arrange the soundtrack.

Yeah... I can't shake the thought that SE's just a bunch of graphics whores anymore.

This, of course, already exists. (Sans the Disasterpiece arrangements)

http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1657/

As opposed to all other major developers that totally don't care about graphics.
Come on now, Ashley.
If anything, it's whiny graphic whore baby gamers that made it this way.

I remember in the Playstation era, I was completely at odds with stuff I read. The 2D stuff usually looked great to me, but was derided for looking old and outdated (and admittedly, some of it scaled pretty weird...thinking Tri Ace stuff and also Capcom's Naomi games on the Dreamcast), while the 3D models looked blocky and animated poorly, yet was always complimented. I think Final Fantasy X was probably the first (and really, one of the only times) I was as engulfed in the graphics as I was the gameplay. To this day, I still can't believe they got that thing onto a single disc.

Unfortunately, while I think this game will look amazing, I'm dreading what the character designs will look like this time around. FFVII was probably the most un-Nomura designs of the guy's career and I always liked them. The jokes about Sora being the son of Tidus and Rinoa have long gotten old since then.

I totally see where Ashley is coming from. Take a look at Dark Souls. The atmosphere is beautiful. The graphics are great, but the focus of the game has never been graphics. How long are all the cutscenes in Dark Souls? A few minutes. How long are the cutscenes in Final Fantasy games? Final Fantasy X has nearly 9 hours of cutscenes! See the difference?

Final Fantasy X is a story-heavy RPG, and Dark Souls isn't. In fact, Dark Souls is very minimalist about a lot of things, and it's hardly representative of anything (except its own series) in that regard.

I'm also assuming that those 9 hours of cut scenes include all the in-engine ones (I never counted them, sorry), which has nothing to do with graphic whorism, obviously.
Does SQEX like to go overboard with CG movies? Yes, they most certainly do, we have the success of FF7 to thank for that, I think, and I certainly wouldn't mind if they dialed down on that a bit (and frankly, it's only the main-line FFs where they still do this, although we have yet to see what they'll do for 15).

In any case, the total length of cut scenes has nothing to do with SQEX being "graphics whores."

Have to disagree, to a certain extent. I think it does. I do see your point of course, that there's a difference between gameplay and cutscenes. Nevertheless, the first thing many say about a Final Fantasy game is the "gorgeous cutscenes". I think this leads such games to try and make "prettier" cutscenes because that's what people remember from a FF game, and hence you have the push for "better and better" graphics.

I think when people mention the "gorgeous cutscenes" in FF games they're mostly talking about the CG stuff, not the in-engine stuff, but whatever.

What I'm saying is, this push for "better and better" graphics is of course very real, I'm not disputing that at all, but it's hardly exclusive to SQEX (look at Naughty Dog for instance. If ANY company is a bunch of graphic whores...) and I actually think Square, in recent years at least, have been picking up in terms of gameplay as well (there was definitely a slump during most of the previous gen, but FF14 is great, and 15's demo was very promising as well), whereas Naught Dog just makes very pretty games with very little gameplay depth to them (I was not a big fan of The Last of Us).

Anyway, long story short, graphic whorism is an industry epidemic, not a Square Enix exclusive.

Maybe I should clarify what I was driving at above. I was obviously being pretty blunt calling SE "graphics whores" but here's why I say it. Additionally, it's not all on SE as well.

I think we're all in agreement that the FF7 remake, whatever form it takes, will be pretty different from the original. But here's were I'm coming from. Personally I want them to take the original game and just, I don't know, pretty it up? To be honest I have no real issue with the game as it is besides the out-of-combat character models. But because it's what people expect I guess SE's going to have to crank the graphics dial up to 11 which means a 1 to 1 scale of the original is really impossible because of the assets that would require.

If they could take the original game and basically remaster it with a nice looking (but not overly taxing) graphics engine (and fix all the small little glitches) I'd honestly be drooling for this thing.

Again, I don't need (or want) a remake of FF7 to crank the visuals up to 11. However, I know in my what I'm saying above I just want the game to mirror the original because of nostalgia.

I would like to see the remake clean up the translation (obviously) and mature the story without taking it too off-track. But I doubt that will happen. It will be shortened and simplified (redone combat for single-character, free roaming controls a la XIII / XV, anyone?) -- still a good game, but with plenty of fodder for lovers of the original to complain about.

As far as the music, I wouldn't be at all surprised if S-E contracted with Uematsu at least for enough to get his name headlining the show. The thing to watch for will be all of the lesser-knowns who do the bulk of the work, arranging/remixing the original songs. God, I'm cynical when Square is involved anymore!

So basically you want the PC port? Cause that's coming to PS4 as well

I'm pretty sure they're going to revamp the entire story, with a new script and dialogue and everything. They'd have to, with such a big leap in graphics and presentation.

They may want to be VERY careful about this. Plenty of us haven't jumped onto the new generation of consoles yet as is and if they screw with the original gameplay too much, there will be plenty of Youtube videos and streams to see the important parts. The need to actually PLAY (and by extension, own) the game is actually far less than the original. They can't afford to push the envelope and people's patience, like they did with FF8 or Chrono Cross.

Well, there's the conundrum right there.
Yeah, there's a whole lot of fans who haven't jumped onto the new gen yet, but there'll also be a whole shitload of people who play the game for the first time, and who do not really care about archaic systems and combat.
Square has the unenviable task of having to please both groups and my guess is that they'll go for a modern take on the old game, rather than something super-faithful to the original.

lol, I'm too old and jaded to muster much of a passionate case for the classic Final Fantasy battle systems, but the "new" systems seem to be much debated in an era where JRPG's have really taken a backseat to a lot of people. And I don't mean debated in the same way the Junctions in VIII or the Spirit Grid in X are...I mean people who just stopped playing the newer games (particularly XIII) partially because of the battles or who enjoy the games despite the battles. I have yet to meet someone IRL that thinks highly of the newer battle systems (although truthfully, XIII reminds me of Star Ocean's battles from what little I've seen of it and that's not a horrible thing at all to me).

Either way, Square's got one hell of a decision to make.

God, if ONLY XIII's combat was even half as good as Star Ocean's, it might actually have been not terrible.

There's no freedom of movement in XIII, so it's really nothing like SO at all (although Lightning Returns comes fairly close). It's just slightly faster ATB-based.

Personally what this guy describes would be my ideal version of FFVII, though I would add that the game would have to remain 4:3...
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1064897

That would be the respectful way to do it, but it's hard to imagine SE putting in the effort now they have the remake on their plate.

He's freelance.  He also JUST did the main theme for FFXIV: Heavensward, so he clearly has no problem working with Square right now.  He's the only person I really want messing with the FFVII ost, and even then I think I'd prefer just a sound upgrade vs. totally new arrangements.

I think he's a freelancer. He just does the music to Mistwalker games, because Sakaguchi asks him to.

But I don't think he'd want to arrange anything. He has said in interviews that only cares about composing and doesn't like arranging, so he leaves that to other people. I don't remember his exact words, but somewhere he said that.

I'm obviously not a composer.... but why is it I can totally understand that? Not sure...

You know, I didn't think about this until now... but the last album I got that did both of these (Wild Arms Alter code:F) I kind of have mixed feelings about. The "improved" instruments made some of the classics feel over done IMO and it was the new tracks that were the bigger prize.

Additionally, Maverick Hunter X and Powered Up were kind of hit and miss as well.

Going back to a revered classic is a touchy thing.

I have yet to play The Last of Us, but my impression was that it was very much story-driven and graphics were secondary. It is a AAA title so of course graphics are important to a certain extent, but everyone praised the story. I did play the first Uncharted, at least for a little while. I actually thought the story was great, and it seemed like silly-fun (reminded me a bit of Indiana Jones). However, I got sick of the stupid battles and eventually gave up. I totally gave up on FF years ago. If only they would make another Tactics game.

The plot thickens: http://gematsu.com/2015/12/final-fantas … art-series

People who complained about Sony selling Gran Turismo games in multiple parts and Konami selling MGSV in two parts are gonna love this!

Don't know what this is going to entail exactly yet, so I'll refrain from making judgment, but in a world where games like MGSV, The Witcher 3, and Xenoblade exist, it's hard to justify this as "we can't fit it all into one game."

FFVII is too big of a game to completely remake in one swing.  FFVII is not an open world game, you can't compare.