Following the announcement that the Final Fantasy VII Remake will be receiving the episodic treatment, days after the game received its first gameplay trailer at the PlayStation Experience in San Francisco, developers Square Enix have now reportedly shed some light on why they have opted to go down a controversial multi-part release route rather than releasing the game on one disc, as had been expected.
The previous announcement had been made in a press release, with the developer stating that it will “be told across a multi-part series, with each entry providing its own unique experience.” This was met with a wide range of criticism from those who had been looking forward to the remake, though Square released no information in regards to its multi-part release aside from this short statement.
However, Square’s Yoshinori Kitase and Tetsuya Nomura have now shed some light on the reason behind this decision, along with revealing some more information in regards to how the upcoming remake will differ from the 1997 original.
According to an interview with Dengeki Online, which was translated by a user on NeoGAF (you can also read Google’s poorly translated version of the article here), Nomura claimed that the reasoning behind Final Fantasy VII Remake being split into an episodic series was because Square would have to remove certain if it was one game.
“If we tried to stuff the whole game into one release, some part of the game would have to appear as digests,” Nomura said. “We’d have to remove some contents from the game, and it would be difficult to add more to the game. Considering that a full remake of the original game must be achived, we have decided to split the game into episodes.” Kitase added that the game will be dense, with players able to explore various locations within Midgar that they couldn’t before.
But the move to a multi-part release won’t mean that everything from the original game will make it into the remake. According to Square, the “overall volume” of the game will be big, though “some stuff will still be cut.”
In terms of combat, Kitase stated that the Active Time Battle (ATB) system will make its way into the game, though it will be real-time with an “action feel.” Nomura stated that the degree of action would be “Dissidia > Kingdom Hearts > Final Fantasy VII Remake,” with FFVII being more tactical.
With so many looking forward to Final Fantasy VII Remake it was inevitable that this announcement would not go down well, though these comments from Square explain the situation a little better and could stand to assuage a few fans’ fears. Hopefully we’ll learn more about Square’s plans for FFVII‘s release sooner rather than later, before the rumor mill goes into overdrive.
