Without doubt, this year saw the release of some huge games, some of which people had been waiting on for quite some time. One of those was, of course, Final Fantasy 7 Remake. The first part of the RPG series gave many fans a strong case of nostalgia, and we know that Part 2 is well underway in development. But those who have finished the first part also know that the game’s later half took quite the turn, something that fans have been far more divided on. Well, it seems that one of the title’s co-directors had to put a stop to some of it.
In a new interview with Famitsu, Tetsuya Nomura said that overall the development of the game went smoothly without a lot of big clashes or conflicts since the basic plans were decided on long ago. Surprisingly, he said that for a lot of ideas for the second half of the game, where the story began to diverge more from the original plot, he was the “stopper” for many of those (thanks to Reddit user MKillerby for translations).
“Because the plan for the ‘FF7 Remake’ was decided from the very start, there weren’t any disputes,” Nomura said. “However, from person to person there were differences in ways of thinking so there were instances where disputes arose as to how much should be changed, unexpectedly in the second half there were many instances where I became a (door) stopper [laughs].”
This lines up with what one of the producers said earlier in the year about originally wanting more drastic change to the original story. There’s irony here, of course, as those who are familiar with Nomura and his work as the spearhead of the Kingdom Hearts franchise (which has become so narratively convoluted even hardcore fans have to take a minute to grasp its complexities), assumed he was the one behind a lot of the big changes in the later chapters. It actually seems he may have been the one keeping the ship as close to the course as possible.
