Final Fantasy VIII Director Yoshinori Kitase Explains Why It Was Late To The Remaster Party

Last year when the Final Fantasy VII, IX, X/X-2, XII HD remasters were announced for rerelease on Xbox One & Switch, Final Fantasy VIII was noticeably missing but later announced for a 2019 release. The original director Yoshinori Kitase explained in an interview with Famitsu why its remaster was delayed.

[PhoenixUp]

Now when you guys going to get to work on that FFXIII remaster? It’d be worth playing if you integrated the character switching from FFXIII-2 into the original game

[FalconofLucis98]

Yeah they should remaster the 13 trilogy into 1 disk for people who enjoyed it

[Teflon02]

... Not anyone's fault you played the crap 360 version. That wasn't a issue on PS3 at all, it was 1 disc. PC version is good as well

[Dabigsiebowski]

@falconflucis98

Damn dude I hope you are hard at work on compression methods! I cannot wait to see how you optimize the high bitrate 1080 FMV's for all three games on one disc with all the game content! You would go down as a legend!!!!!!!!!!! DO it dude!!!!!

[Shiken]

@Teflon02

Tone down the fanboy bud, thats not what he was talking about. He said the TRILOGY on one disk...thats 3 games.

Final Fantasy XIII
Final Fantasy XIII-2
Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Returns

Seriously focus more on gaming itself rather than trying to bash people for not playing on the same box as you. You only make yourself look bad.

[DillyDilly]

Its digital on xbox one

[-Foxtrot]

Honestly, FFXIII is a trilogy that really dosen't need to be touched again...ever

[rainslacker]

I liked it well enough. It deserves to be touched about as much as any game does. Just because you didn't like it doesn't mean it's not worth anything.

[-Foxtrot]

Just because I don't like it?

There's many others who don't, I'm not in the minority here.

Why waste time on something recent and not well liked as all the other titles in the series which deserve more love?

[Elda]

The ones that didn't like it are in the minority including the most vocal on these game sites,the game sold over 7 million copies.

[Poopmist]

XIII-2 was pretty good

[AspiringProGenji]

I agree with Fox. Besides the game graphically hasn’t aged a bit. Other than that, the trilogy just sucks. It doesn’t need a remaster

[RedDevils]

I wish f13 never existed, It a biggest turd I have ever played.

[Wintersun616]

@Elda, sales and someones subjective opinion of a game are not in direct relation. A game can sell well and still be bad. I bought it too and was disappointed and vocal about it. I read all the bad reviews and thought to still give it a chance.

[Chexs1990]

I loved it :)
Didn't really mind that it was as linear as 10, it kinda got me going on the story and lore.
Although the kid (can't recall his name) can burn in hell. He was obnoxious as all hell.

With that being said, while I enjoyed 2 and Lightning for what they were, I can only really see myself playing the original again.

[Lionsguard]

FF13 wasn't the greatest but I think if any game does deserve a...reimagining with a new story, it'd be 13. They really screwed that game with that corridor progression crap.

[rainslacker]

Except you are in the minority. The critics liked it well enough. Many people liked it, and the first two in the series sold decently well. The third fell a bit, but also sold well. That's a lot of people buying games in a series they apparently don't like.

FFXIII was a good enough game, but wasn't a very good FF game....mostly because they seemed like they dialed it back as too much seemed left undone. the second was actually really good, despite it's plot structure. The third was good in it's own right game play wise, the story was stupid and pointless.

It's fine if you didn't like it. I can see why people would be disappointed in it. But there was nothing technically wrong with the game itself. It was an average game. The best thing about a remaster is that you could just avoid it, and the people that did like it, could buy it if they did.

[SegaSaturn669]

FF10-2 and FF13 were aboritons IMO. Remake ff6, remaster FFTactics in HD.

[pietro1212]

X-2 had the best battle system in the franchise along side the ATD system in XII

[dumahim]

I'd prefer Crisis Core before those.

[FalconofLucis98]

I agree

[Elda]

I would love a FFXIII remaster as well!!

[Last_Boss]

They really should compress the game into one story and do it right. I mean it literally needs a remake itself. XIII had an incredible backdrop and wasn't even skimmed over.

[Father__Merrin]

@teflon the pc version is awful you have no choice but to use an external program to lock to 30fps otherwise it's unplayable..

But a 13 trilogy remaster would be ace. I'm part way through 13-2 on pc but it's very difficult to follow it's like checkpoint levels and not a flowing story. Immaculate music though

[sephiroth420]

they really shouldnt remaster any of the ff13 games, they are all shit, plus you can play them on PC if you want to play it looking its best.

[Platformgamer]

well, the real reason is that FF8 is sadly underrated, expecially in america, so SE didn't see a remunerative return by remastering it...
a stupid thought by them, being FF8 one of the best FF game ever made and very appreciated all around the globe (mostly), i'm glad SE finally understand it :)
D1 for sure by me

[Immagaiden]

That logic doesn’t hold up. FFVIII has a bigger following than FF Crystal Chronicles and Square Enix has no issue remastering the latter. Plus FFVIII is one of the most commercially successful games in the series

It’s most likely that they just lost the resources and had to reverse engineer a remaster like they did with KH1

[TheHan]

I’d rather get remake of 8 just like 7 is. Both are my most favorite in the entire series/saga of final fantasy.

[RizBiz]

I want to know why they changed Squall's hairstyle. It looks absolutely awful now.

[on_line_forever]

I was hoping for remake , maybe in the future ?

[FallenAngel1984]

We don’t even know when they’ll be done with FFVIIR completely or even when FFXVI will be out, yet you think they’d just casually start a remake on another high profile game?

[jznrpg]

Love FF8 . Physical copy please

[Master of Unlocking]

After reading the interview I still don't understand why they had the actor who played Squall for the motion capture work use a weapon actually made of iron instead of something like rubber, he wouldn't still have cold sweats to this day thinking about it, but I like that they completely revamped the characters' look, it's so much better than the original PS version. Minor qualm in the Chocobo mini-game being removed entirely, but since I never got to fiddle with that to begin with, no big loss I guess. Besides I believe it was only available in the japanese version, so no big deal.
However I'm not forking out 20€ for it, I'll wait for a bargain sale like for FFVII and get it at 10€ at most.