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.

After watching the last trailer I was more on board with actually trying the game...

...but now, I won't bother until the entire thing is out and on a disc or someone I know has it DLed.

I know I've said this but I don't really fall into the "they've ruined it" camp with this one. I don't really have that great of emotional connection to VII even though it was my first RPG.

Why? I see no reason why FFVII should be "too big" of a game to make "in one swing"?? Also, it's possible this new version will be open world. That said, I would imagine an open world is actually harder to make than a linear game since programmers know what players will do in a linear game but in an open world they do not. Hence, it's much harder, requires more time and programming. Perhaps Square plans to put in hours of fmv? These days it seems like fmv is a thing of the past, and instead you have interactive cut-scenes such as in Tomb Raider (which are pretty cool for the most part). Also, I don't know how many players will be happy shelling out $60 for Final Fantasy VII - Part I. Then again, FF does have plenty of fanboys and girls...

FF 7 is far from my favorite Final Fantasy but I am pretty content with the quality of the trailer that came out for the game. Im really looking forward to getting the soundtrack (but only if its not on bluray). The only thing I hate right now is the downloading in installments. That's a crock. I do believe the reason they say it would be too big is because they actually have to render the environment in full 3D now as opposed to pre-rendered backgrounds. Honestly even though the backgrounds didn't move that much they were pretty as hell. I don't see any reason we can't have new, beautiful looking games with pre-rendered backgrounds today. Look at the GCN RE-Make. Awesome update, kept pre-rendered. Hmmm. How about lets re-make 9 instead.

Personally I am confused. The gameplay trailer gave me the impression that they were building this on top of the FF15 open world engine. That would make more sense if you spend all those years building an in-house piece of software. Yet today its been announced it's being built on Unreal (most likely for maxium portability/$$$).

Yeah this thing blew up while I was watching Capcom Cup this past Sunday. The SE apologists were out in full force.

My stance: If you can't remake a single game that, at its heart was just a traditional JRPG, without making it multiple parts, then you are either not as talented as people think you are or you are trying to keep your shareholders happy by trying to milk extra dough out of an audience that is quickly losing patience with being milked. I suspect it is a combination of the two. It's not like a MMORPG or a fighting game which evolve over time and warrant additional releases...It is a straight-forward JRPG.

Either way, it left a sour taste in my mouth.

I just realized something! Its probably because those fools want to put it on a single Blu-Ray. What they need is 3 Blu-Rays.....and one of those old school PSX Cases baha.

FF VII was 4 CDs when it came out. That was mind-bogglingly huge back then. But, it was one game. Not FF VII part I ....

Still, what do I care. Square can shoot themselves in the foot if they want. I'm honestly not interested. I want to see a real sequel to Tactics.

My guess is that this will just end up being an episodic action combat game with cut scenes following the general story and locations of FFVII, losing much of the exploration and RPG stuff. Possibly resembling more a Kingdom Hearts game than FF of old.

Considering Square is trying to convince us a single blue ray isn't large enough for this game it's only natural people are bringing up how many discs FVII was... but a lot of people seem to be getting this number wrong.

I thought VII was 3 discs? FFVIII was four and so was IX. Maybe people are confusing it with the OST?

Additionally, isn't FFVII spread among its discs in odd fashion. A lot of the data on the discs is on the other discs. I can't remember... is it the FMV that are every disc? Can't you put another disc in and view a FMV if that part is damaged on another disc and then swap back when you need to get to gameplay?

You're right, it was 3 discs. Well, that was still huge
I'm trying to forget ever playing that game, so I can't comment on the FMV, of which there was a lot. Also, why does Cloud still have really scrawny arms??

While I'm not annoyed as some people are at people asking this over and over on the internet (some people will just chew you out for it) if you think about FFVII's story (namely what happened in Nibblehiem (sp?) after Cloud's "flashback") what happened to him in the three years after that it makes sense. Cloud's strength isn't exactly/entirely natural.

Not saying the model is 100% perfect... but yeah, you can easily explain it away with certain plot points,

What did people really expect?  The original game was monumentally large in its time, do you think they can just wave their hands and remake a core game with 40 hours of gameplay and like 80+ additional content and release it all at once?  It's impossible.  I'm sure they're going to cut content from the game.  I'm sure it will be different.  I'm sure they're going to modernize it (as has already been seen by brief introduction to the combat system). 

SQEX isn't milking a bastion franchise or its fans, it's trying to release one of (if not the most) hyped game in the last 25 years and trying to taper fan expectations of just immediately having something after it was announced.  It's going to take a very long time.  It's going to make them a lot of money.  And there's nothing anyone can really do to change any of that, no matter how bad you may want the game or for it to change.

I, personally, will be buying every single episodic game and whatever DLC they put in it and I'm going to love every single minute of it.

I'm not disagreeing with this. However, you have to admit that announcing FFXVI (FFvsXIII) so early and the wait for that game is part of the reason why people are so impatient.

If they hadn't had been so hasty and tripping over their own announcements I think the current situation would be very different.

In general I think companies need to keep projects under wraps for longer periods of time, much like Fallout 4. If you're going to spend 3-5 years on a game don't bother announcing/showing it off until a year before it releases.

That's not really a company problem, it's a community problem.  The solution has to be people have to be more mature and not expect instant gratification.  That's just not how life works.

Well, I wouldn't say there's nothing anyone can do...SE has been abusing their fanbase for years now and this MAY very well be the straw that breaks the camel's back for a lot of people, having to buy multiple parts to get the "full" experience. It WILL sell, but it won't be welcomed with open arms by everyone.

But I disagree on your statement about the game's size...If it had been done on the SNES with 16 bit graphics, it would have been no bigger than, say, FFIV-FFVI. It DEFINITELY would have been smaller than VI. Outside of Midgar (which was legitimately massive for an RPG town/city...it made Vector and Baron seem tiny), none of the dungeons or towns are excessively massive in the game. What I think is they have probably not decided how to advance the story past Midgar and whether they're going the overworld route or not.

The game wasn't that large. The 3CDs were there SOLELY because of the FMVs -- the whole game fit onto ONE disc without them with MUCH room to spare.
The game itself wasn't particularly longer than FFVI....or maybe a better example would be the contemporaneous Wild Arms. It boggles me to see people talk about how utterly big the game was, when it really wasn't. Grandia was a good deal longer.

It's not all about actual length. FFVII had a serious amount of varying content. A lot of locations, yes, the FMV and story but also a biking section, snowboarding, the tactics game, gold saucer stuff, underwater areas and probably a bunch of stuff I'm forgetting. It was pretty packed.

Are fmvs somehow not considered part of the game? Don't be ridiculous.

Of course they are. But had the same amount of...content....been done with cut scenes instead it would have been much much smaller.

Don't be ridiculous. Of course it's possible to release it all at once. But why release it all at once for $60 four years from now when you can break it up into several 10-20 hour chunks with some minor new content and a lot of filler quests and release one every year for four years at $60 a pop? FF7 is the most bankable brand Squenix has. By breaking it into chunks and releasing it over a period of time, Squenix has a guaranteed recurring revenue stream to keep its shareholders happy over the next few years.