The Final Fantasy VII remake looks amazing– the new trailer that we got for the game yesterday was definitely the highlight of Sony’s PlayStation Experience showing. And on the whole, the game looks like a loveletter to its multitude of fans, but there is one lingering doubt that remains in the minds of many, yours truly included- how will the switch to real time battles from the classic turn based ones that were ion the original game, work out?
According to Producer Yoshinori Kitase, it will work out very well, and Square Enix will ensure that the battle system balances action and strategy perfectly.
“The hardware itself has evolved since the release of Final Fantasy VII, and the games are more real, and real-time based. The previous Final Fantasy VII was a command-based RPG that utilized active-time-battle. Real-time and GMC are the trends these days,” he said.
“I can’t say the new game is completely action-based, but it has more of that element and real-time than the previous game.
“However, what makes Final Fantasy and RPG different from other games is that the players have the ability to choose weapons, capabilities and magic to be strategic minded, so while the new game has more real-time element, it will also maintain that strategy building element, balancing these two factors perfectly to enhance the gaming experience.”
He also discussed how the power of the PS4 would help to make more expressive and realistic looking characters- which would help the game with its storytelling.
“The game is still in development, and we have not fully grasped all the abilities of and upgrades made to PlayStation 4. The graphics are superb on PlayStation 4, and more polygon volume is available to make it better.
“The way we harnessed the power of the PlayStation 4 was to maintain the graphic quality of characters like Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith in the movie called Advent Children in our game, and this was the starting point. So, what we’re aiming for with the Final Fantasy VII Remake is to have the same quality of these characters in real-time while playing the game, and this is only achievable with PlayStation 4.”
All of this sounds great to me- just don’t make me wait till 2030 to get my grubby mitts on it, is all.