One of the most perplexing trends in game development over the last few years has been companies handing off remakes to studios who very obviously do not want to make remakes. Certainly, it makes sense developers aren’t keen to spend two to three years of their lives updating someone else’s passion project, but sometimes that’s the job you’re given. Where this goes off the rails of common sense is when the studio decides to “update,” “re-imagine,” or everyone’s favorite phrase “modernize the experience” and are then allowed to do so.
Almost never does this actually succeed, but this is where we find the Final Fantasy 7 Remake. An undeniable fact as the lead producer Yoshinori Kitase has confirmed to Gamespot in an interview that the game is not being developed for original audiences but instead is being developed for a mythical “younger audience.”
“But if we were just to make it a 100%, one-for-one remake of the original game, just follow the story exactly as it was, and not change anything… I think people would like it but it would just be ‘Oh yeah, I remember this. This was great, how nostalgic,’ and that’s all you get.”
“We have to meet people’s expectations, give them what they want to see… But we have to go beyond that and really exceed their expectations and give them new surprises as well. So it was something we had to pay a lot of attention to and we were very careful… it didn’t just stop at ‘Yeah, that was a great game, I remember this.’ We had to go further and provide a new experience.”
“The changing tastes of the fanbase of the Final Fantasy franchise as a whole. We’ve got lots of younger gamers now and they like that very instinctive action-game style of control. There is a whole new generation who has likely never played Final Fantasy VII, and the focus on refining the heavy action is to cater to that new, younger audience who “are familiar with that and expect that.”
A decision that is likely going to bite Square Enix hard given the hype train has seemingly derailed following the release of the demo that went on to please virtually no one. The social justice warriors, aka this younger audience, hated the experience as they found the game to be too difficult. Actual gamers — after calling journalists hacks– reported the game was, in fact, stupid easy to the point it was boring while being overall just unfun.
It has been rather amusing watching supporters initially try to defend the game before pretending as if they were never into the game to begin with after it was well decided by the Zeitgeist that it was bad. Given the game is episodic, adopters would be wise to be concerned regarding Square pulling the plug on the expansion plans similar to what they did with Final Fantasy 15. A good reason why everyone even if they have an interest in the game should just wait for all the episodes to be released, with all the patches and the smoothest experience.
