Director Tetsuya Nomura has confirmed that Final Fantasy VII‘s recently announced remake will feature “dramatic” changes to its gameplay.
The announcement of a bona fide Final Fantasy VII remake was easily one of the most welcome shockers to come out of Sony’s 2015 E3 conference. As excited as some fans were however, the reveal also led some gamers to worry about how faithful an experience Square Enix could produce in the modern era. Addressing the issue recently, the company confirmed that it will indeed be making some alterations to the game’s formula, some of which will be “dramatic.”
That, at least, is what was expressed by director Tetsuya Nomura when he spoke about the game in a recent interview. More specifically, Nomura indicated that the combat in the new version will most likely utilize a new combat system rather than simply recreating the active-time battles from the original. “We are bringing dramatic changes to the Final Fantasy VII Remake,” he stated. “So we’re hoping that you’ll look forward to additional information that we’ll be able to release when the time comes.”
Nomura would go on to promise that the changes being made wouldn’t transform the game so deeply that it would be unrecognizable to fans. “We want to clarify,” he said. “We’re not going to be changing it into a shooter or something like that. We are going to be bringing dramatic changes, but we want to make sure it’s still recognizable.” He would additionally indicate that the development team will be looking to the film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children as a visual reference, although they won’t be using actual models from the movie due to the fact it’s “almost ten years” old.
Speaking personally, I don’t really think that Square Enix needs to tinker with the gameplay at all. I know that some people dislike the battle systems from older Final Fantasy titles, but I honestly think the gameplay in those now outdated games was leagues stronger than anything Square Enix has produced in the franchise’s more modern iterations. Moreover, while the company obviously needs to sell copies to more than just the fans of the original, I’m willing to bet that many of the game’s hardcore devotees would be perfectly happy with just a polished up ATB system.
Source: Gematsu
