Final Fantasy VII Remake’s greatest challenge isn’t just size and scope – it’s tone

VG247: “We’re now almost four years from the announcement of Final Fantasy VII Remake – and no doubt its development team has faced countless challenges. The biggest is arguably one not nearly as often discussed, however – and it’s all about tone.

Final Fantasy VII is a complex game in many ways. It’s sprawling in scope, but it’s also a game with surprisingly real, delicate themes despite actually being about an evil lifeform from outer space. It’s often surprisingly tender and real – but that reality is also frequently accompanied by a sort of gleeful, camp absurdity that in 1997 didn’t feel all that jarring. It was the right amount of sincerity and crazy in the right package at the right time. It was lightning in a bottle. In 2019, with games more filmic than ever, such results are not guaranteed.“

[lio_convoy]

The biggest challenge is this game's essentially being built from the ground up. It's not the tone. 🙄

[EliteComments123]

LOL exactly

[WombBat]

Only partially. They are using the Unreal Engine so a humongous chunk of the work is done in that way. The Luminous Engine development was supposedly part of the reason why Final Fantasy XV took as long as it did.

But I agree with both of you. There is a tremendous amount of art that needs to be produced, but more importantly, the art has to have the right tone, quality, and charm. Otherwise, they rework it, as we saw earlier with cyberconnect dropping out of development. They admitted cyberconnect's work was not up to snuff.

So overall, I don't think they should change how the characters are and how they react, but tweaks will have to be made for voice acting and capturing the goofiness and serious tone. I already see some red flags in the way they portray cloud as a sort of quiet boy, instead of a hard mercenary that he was in FFVII.

[EliteComments123]

But i get what the article is taking about..

[Tapani]

The biggest challenge is to keep the battle system as it is while adding to it. It was the ultimate active turn-based system around, and they should not change it. Materia system etc. should not be changed and streamlined. The game is ready, just make it bigger and better looking, use the base you have and create the scenes again. Can't be that hard if you have an AAA team and almost unlimited resources and time.

[PhoenixUp]

That’s what a remake is, something rebuilt from the ground up

If it weren’t it’d be a remaster which they’ve already done for FFVII

[DillyDilly]

What is wrong with sticking with the original games tone ? How is that hard ? Change to much its a reboot & not a remake

[CrimsonWing69]

I agree. The original FF7 had a lot of whimsical and fun moments. It wasn’t all emo like Advent Children or Dirge of Cerberus. I feel that’s a Nomura direction. Hopefully, they’ll keep all the humorous parts in, but who knows. I still need to see what they’ve been doing before I can get all hyped again.

[PiNkFaIrYbOi]

Doubtful that they will keep all of the humorous parts as some of them will offend people and the sjw crowd will pile on it and make a big fuss if certain things are still in it.

[Horseygamer]

very complex game in size story depth and game manics, im impressed the square selected FF7 other than previous games, it a mammoth task plus satisfying the fans is gonna be very hard!

[Vanfernal]

If Nomura is involved in the direction my hopes are extremely low. He should just stick to drawing beautiful girly men and leave the story writing and directing to someone who actually knows what a cohesive story is.

[CDbiggen]

Haha, this.

[knickstr]

I really wish they would keep the game the same and just redo all the maps, visuals, and voice acting.

[Nacho_Z]

It would have been fantastic if they'd done all that and kept the gameplay more or less the same, it would have been a great path to find a way to build on one of the best RPGs of recent years. Unfortunately instead we're getting a lot of FF7 themed bullshit.

[yomfweeee]

What the hell is this article about? How exactly do they know what the challenges are?

[Omnislashver36]

They're entirely correct.

The tone for everything from art direction, to comedy, to events, whatever meta themes they have- rebuilding the game on every level requires them to know the tone of literally everything.

[yomfweeee]

Again says who? Did one of the devs?

[Nacho_Z]

Why do you have to be one of the devs of this specific game to know what kind of challenges people face who are making a game. You don't.

[Omnislashver36]

Are you serious? Do you even have the slightest idea of how game development works?

Everything they have outsourced much match the main team's quality so yes, they must all know the tone, and yes, NOMURA made a point of this many times from getting the art style named ("Deformed Realism" for FFVIIR and "Kingdom Shader" for KH3) and saying that every scene has to be reimagined to match the original game's vision but shown in the best possible way with modern technology.