In an interview with Gamespot, Final Fantasy XII director Takashi Katano talked about the upcoming release of the Zodiac Age remastered edition of the PS2 JRPG for the PS4, due out this July. In the interview they also discuss the possibility of other Final Fantasy titles being remastered from before the PS2 era.

According to Katano-san, he believes it’s unlikely that PSX-era games will get the remaster treatment, due to the amount of work involved and the fact that the assets carrying over into the new generation of hardware with higher resolutions wouldn’t really work out so great. Katano states…

“ The PlayStation 2 would probably be the only hardware that we could really remaster from. Anything before that probably wouldn’t be a remaster anymore, but a remix because of all the polygon models and sprites, like Final Fantasy VII. That’s probably why they’re doing a remake, instead of like a remaster.”

So this will likely be the last remastered Final Fantasy game for a while given that everything else beyond Final Fantasy XII has been made for the PS3 and beyond. Of course, you can likely expect a remastered version of Final Fantasy XIII at some point, but not the games made before the PS2 era… unless, of course, the games are being remade.

Remakes are a bit different insofar that it’s completely redoing the game from the ground up with all new assets and gameplay designed for a newer generation of gamer.

Final Fnatasy XII: The Zodiac Age producer Hiroaki Kato quipped that he would love to see the older Final Fantasy games from way back in the Gameboy age remade for newer systems, but also concedes that it would likely be a difficult task, saying…

“I’d love to see a remaster of Final Fantasy I and all the numbered titles, but that would be difficult to do.”

At the moment, Tetsuya Nomura and the rest of the team are still hard at work on completely remaking Final Fantasy VII. This means that it’s unlikely that we’ll see anything for Final Fantasy IX anytime soon.

The game was the last Final Fantasy title on the PSX system before Final Fantasy X was made for the PS2. The latter title has already been re-released as a remaster along with Final Fantasy X-2. A lot of people actually really enjoyed Final Fantasy IX because they say it felt as if it were a 3D throwback to all the games made before Final Fantasy VII.

At the moment, you can get your hands on Final Fantasy IX as a ported version from the PSX for mobile devices and on Steam for PC. However, it’s not an HD remaster, so and the age certainly shows.

(Main image courtesy of Ichi San)