Chickity check yourself. Prior to wrecking yourself, preferably.

SO what do we all think? It lists Yoshinori Kitase as producer, and the director as Nomura. You ask me, that's bloody backwards, but I'll reserve my snark until I see more.

Probably the only game I'm excited for after ffxv

I've never thought it would be a good idea, and expect it to be nothing less than a multi-million-selling creative disaster.

There's so much about FFVII that simply will not translate into a modern day game, and so they will alter it to the extent that it will be a different game through and through. To which the usual response is: well why shouldn't it be different, why compare it to the original? To which my usual response is: if you're going to make a different game, make a different game - don't hijack the title, story, places, characters and legacy of an existing one.

But I sincerely hope I'm wrong, and that the remake is done with the care and respect it deserves.

I saw FFVII remake and I thought it was about this at first.

I fear that Squenix will add a revive Aerith quest in a misguided attempt to give fans what they want.

Basically this, so much to this.

However, as long as it's better than Wild Arms Alter code:F I'll be happy.

Also, have they announced the music composer yet?

If they can pull it off, I'm all for it. But the sheer amount of content in FFVII and what that would amount to in dev costs seems like a mammoth task. I wonder how much they are willing to sink into it or how remade it will genuinely be. I will definitely be watching this with interest.

Since I haven't played a Final Fantasy game in years (Tactics notwithstanding) I'm really not excited. Since I didn't like FF VII in the first place, I'm even less excited. I do think it was a good move on SE's part. People are all excited, although I fail to see why. I thought FF VII was a grand mess and that IV was superior in just about every way. Heck, I'd be far more excited if they had decided to redo VI.

Actually, you're not alone here. I'm not very goo-goo ga-ga over Final Fantasy VII myself (I'd rather play and own Wild Arms 1 & 2) but I'm just kind of happy they're doing it so people can shut the (expletive) up about SE not doing it.

I'm looking forward to this. However, my two potential massive likely buzzkills:

1. Takeharu Ishimoto composing the music.

2. No ATB. I'm expecting something along the lines of current FF's with materia. I hope I'm wrong.

Agreed on number 2, definitely. I have to say I'm pretty damn worried about what form combat will take with this one.

I feel the same way about Naoshi Mizuta, lol.  Although I highly doubt he'd get the responsibility of something with this kind of storied history.  I'd be fine with a rearrange version ala something like what they did with Advent Children.

Very excited to see what this will turn into but yeah, it's probably going to be VERY different from the original game, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

I don't know... not really the biggest Mizuta fan myself (God knows he's produced a decent amount of clunkers) but what he's composing for seems to be the make or break factor for him. The bad thing is you can't really tell which projects are which until after the fact.

Fingers crossed. And yeah, Mizuta at his BEST is strikingly average to me. But no soundtrack has ever traumatized me the same way Crisis Core did...

Then again, they might decide a more "modern" score is more fitting for this one (ie, toning down the more melodic parts and the overall "gaminess" of some tracks). Part of the charm of the original FFVII soundtrack is its not too far removed from the previous games.

"yeah, those catchy battle themes and that goofy Chocobo themes gotta go...we need generic downtuned heavy metal chords in there for our battle themes" *cringe*

I'll be listening to samples of this one like a hawk.

The original soundtrack is a big part of what made VII so beloved. Is there any reason to believe they'd jettison the existing soundtrack (the first time an FF remake would do so), or are you speculating who will arrange the music rather than compose it?

I'm hoping whatever they do (arrange or make new music), they don't screw it up.

I'd be interested if they flesh out the story a bit more. If I remember correctly wasn't the game based loosely on a book? There were plenty of holes in the story that made no sense.

If it just turns out to be the advent children art style rendered in a 13/15 engine then no thanks.

Arrange. Yeah, guess I used the wrong word there.

But speaking of the soundtrack for the PS1 version, am I the only one that, I don't know, gets irritated that people are still griping over the sound quality of that midi in 2015? I stumbled upon a thread on another site where people were doing that and I'm thinking play the PC version then get back to me on that.

I mean really, I know the midi is somewhat weak... but did that really take away from those tracks? Stuff like "ShinRa Company" and "Anxious Heart" still give me chills despite the limitations.

I hope they slip some of the Black Mages versions of songs into the soundtrack.

this is what happens when someone at SE starts sleeping with george lucas

I've been struggling since yesterday with how to verbalize my reaction to the trailer, but I can't do it adequately. I had no idea the remake was happening until I opened YouTube on someone's computer to troubleshoot streaming video, and I saw that, and was like HOLYSHITWHAT. Then when I went to watch it I paused the video, and was like, dude, don't. You're not going to play it and FFVII is a life-defining game for you. Let it go.

I went and watched it anyway and didn't feel anything. Where was the twinge of excitement in my gut? Or the slight rush from the possibility of a new Uematsu re-visitation of the classic soundtrack? I'm sure parts of this is that I think SE has been a massive shit factory for the past decade, and that I'll never get my teenage years back, and why am I almost 33 and still listening to MIDI music from almost 20 years ago while I cook dinner in my underwear in my apartment, but I expected to feel something. Some anger, excitement, apprehension? Maybe?

But, no. I got nothing. This is likely going to be a very long-awaited and expensive and disappointing cautionary tale of "be careful what you wish for".

Heh.  With all of these long-awaited sequels and remakes, "twinge of excitement" is really the defining phrase of E3 2015.

I'm not very excited for the FFVII remake, but I did feel a twinge while watching the teaser.  I appreciate that it's low key rather than conventionally loud and frenetic and appreciate also that it shows only glimpses of and allusions to the main cast.  The teaser does what a teaser is supposed to do: leave much unshown, to excite the imagination.

I also quite like the way the voiceover describes the wait for this remake in dramatic narrative form.  It's like the fans are part of the story.

I for one am excited. There's no point in worrying beforehand, we don't know almost anything about it yet. I'll just wait for gameplay footage and hearing the music.

If you could pick anyone, who would you have arranging the music?

Probably just because of the freakin nostalgia, but I guess I want Nobuo honestly... but is he tied in with Mystwalker or he freelance?

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.