Final Fantasy VII Remake
Final Fantasy VII Remake[a] is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix. The game is a remake of the 1997 PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII. Square Enix developed the remake as a multi-part series, with the first entry released for the PlayStation 4 on April 10, 2020, with timed exclusivity for one year.
Players control mercenary Cloud Strife as he and a group known as AVALANCHE oppose Shinra, a megacorporation, from using the planet's life essence as an energy source. The gameplay combines real-time action with other strategic elements.
Remake was announced in 2015 following years of fan requests and rumors. Several key staff members returned, including character designer Tetsuya Nomura as director and main character designer, director Yoshinori Kitase as producer, writer Kazushige Nojima, and music composer Nobuo Uematsu. The staff redesigned the characters to balance realism and stylization.
Final Fantasy VII Remake aims to retell the story of the original Final Fantasy VII. Players control Cloud Strife, a former Shinra soldier turned mercenary who joins the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE to fight the Shinra Corporation, who have been draining the planet's life energy. The game is a full remake with real-time polygonal graphics, as opposed to the pre-rendered environments of the original.[1][2]
Exploration and battle mechanics both take place in real-time, like Final Fantasy XV. The game features an altered "Active Time Battle" (ATB) system from the original, which gradually fills up slowly, or can fill faster with attacks. Once it is filled, the player can halt the action and use special abilities such as magic, items, and special moves. The player can also assign these special abilities to shortcut buttons, allowing them to play entirely in real-time without pausing. Each special ability uses up a segment of the ATB bar.[3] The player can also switch between party members at any time. Each party member has their own individual skills, such as Cloud's close-quarters melee attacks and Barret's long-range distance attacks.[4] Players are also able to use magic and summons, and a Limit Break gauge allows characters to perform more powerful attacks once charged. Producer Yoshinori Kitase stated that while the game has more real-time elements, there would still be strategic elements, such as selecting weapons and magic for each character to wield.
Cloud Strife is a former first-class SOLDIER, an elite class of fighters who work for the Shinra Electric Power Company which rules the world. Disillusioned with his former employer, Cloud joins Avalanche, an eco-terrorist organization, to bomb Shinra's energy reactors. Shinra drain spiritual energy from the planet, called mako, to provide power and create technologies. Cloud's terrorist cell is led by the temperamental Barret Wallace. After the first bombing Cloud is haunted by memories of Sephiroth, a mysterious and powerful former high-ranking SOLDIER. Cloud also becomes reacquainted with his childhood friend Tifa Lockhart who is affiliated with Avalanche and fights off strange ghost-like hooded creatures.
After the second bombing, Cloud is split from everyone and meets Aerith Gainsborough who is being chased by Shinra. Aerith is the last descendant of the ancients who were the original stewards of the planet and have magical powers. Shinra believes they can use her power for gains. After finding Tifa, the group learn that Shinra plans to drop the plate where rich people live onto the slum where Avalanche hides in retaliation for the attacks on the mako reactors. Cloud, Tifa and Barret fail to stop Shinra's plan with most of their terrorist cell being killed. Meanwhile Aerith, helping with evacuations, is caught by Shinra.
While cleaning out the rubbles after the destruction of their slum, Tifa, Cloud and Barret discover an underground Shinra research lab. Horrified by the experiments they find inside, they decide to attack Shinra headquarters and rescue Aerith before she is subjected to anything like it. While saving Aerith, the group also rescues a talking wolf-like creature called Red XIII who joins their fight. Aerith explains that the strange ghost-like hooded creatures the group has been fighting are called Whispers. Their job is to ensure destiny happens. If someone tries to change the future from what is meant to be, they will automatically correct it even if it means bringing someone back from the dead. Meanwhile Sephiroth steals an experiment from Shinra thought to be connected to the extinction of the ancients.
On their way to escape the headquarters, Sephiroth murders the president of Shinra which makes his son Rufus the new leader of the company. Meanwhile the building becomes engulfed in Whispers. The group escape on a half-built highway while fighting off their pursuers, Cloud on a motorcycle and the rest in a truck. At the end of the highway the characters catch up to what appears to be a Sephiroth from an alternative timeline. Sephiroth offers the group the freedom to choose their own destiny if they can defeat the Whispers. Afterwards Sephiroth offers Cloud to join him. When Cloud refuses, Sephiroth gives him seven seconds to change whatever he wants. Cloud apparently goes back in time and saves Zack Fair's life creating multiple unacknowledged time paradoxes.
After Cloud returns to his group, they agree to continue chasing the Sephiroth from their own dimension despite no one having explained to them who he is.
Development
Background
Final Fantasy VII was developed by Square for the PlayStation console and released in 1997.[5] Its staff included producer and series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, director and co-writer Yoshinori Kitase, artist Yusuke Naora, character designer Tetsuya Nomura, and writer Kazushige Nojima.[6] The game was a critical and commercial success, and established the Final Fantasy series as a major franchise.[5] It was expanded through the multimedia project Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, comprising additional games, films, and other media.[7]
In the early 2000s, Square announced a remake for PlayStation 2 alongside Final Fantasy VIII and IX, but nothing further was heard of the project.[8][9] It was abandoned because of the increased challenge of developing on new hardware, and would have necessitated cutting content.[10] The staff were also preoccupied with developing Final Fantasy XIII and its sequels, and Remake would have been an equally large or larger project hard to undertake at the same time. Once the XIII series ended, the team was free to pursue other projects.[11]
Demand for a remake grew following a PlayStation 3 tech demo at the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo, showcasing the opening of VII with Square's new Crystal Tools engine. Further demand came during the game's impending tenth anniversary in 2007. On both occasions, Square denied that any remake was in development,[12][13][14] for reasons including their focus on new games, the necessity to cut elements to make a remake manageable, the difficulty of developing for modern hardware, and the amount of development time it would require.[15][16][17][18][19]
The Remake project finally began when Final Fantasy producer Shinji Hashimoto broached the subject to Kitase, Nojima, and Nomura. All three were reaching a stage of life that they defined as "that age": all felt that if they waited much longer, they might not be alive to or would be too old to develop a remake, and passing the project on to a new generation did not feel right.[20][21][22] Another reason for developing the remake was that Square Enix was creating a growing library of PlayStation 4 titles, and the team hoped to increase the console's popularity.[22]
Design
The game entered full production by late 2015, led by Business Division 1, an internal production team within Square Enix.[23][24][25] While Nomura was involved with the project from the start, he only discovered he was the director after seeing himself credited in an internal company presentation video, as he had expected Kitase to fill the role. He revealed that Kitase himself thought Nomura expected to become director.[20] Nomura worked as director for both Final Fantasy VII Remake and Kingdom Hearts III.[26] Despite there already being a story in place, which greatly simplified production on some fronts, Nojima was brought back in to create new story material.[11][20] Another project leader was Naoki Hamaguchi, who had previously served as a programmer for Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII and project lead for Mobius Final Fantasy.[24] The game's soundtrack has contributions from original Final Fantasy VII composer Nobuo Uematsu, along with Masashi Hamauzu and Mitsuto Suzuki.[27] It features newly arranged and orchestrated tracks from the original game, in addition to original material such as "Hollow", a theme song by Uematsu.[27] It was the first time Uematsu and Kitase had worked together since Final Fantasy X (2001), with Kitase initially believing Uematsu would refuse as he had long since left Square Enix and found success as an independent composer.[28]
While the team had the option of merely creating a remastered version of VII with better graphics as many fans had requested, they noted that its graphics and many of its mechanics had become dated by modern standards. With this in mind, they decided to do a full remake, rebuilding the game systems to suit contemporary tastes and using current gaming technology to recreate the world of VII.[20][22] This decision triggered the creation of Remake's action-based battle system, in addition to the most representative modern title for the Final Fantasy series being the 2009 fighting game Dissidia Final Fantasy. With this in mind, the battle system draws from that action-based style while not going over to an entirely action-based system.[11] Nomura and Mitsunori Takahashi are handling the battle system, the latter of whom had worked on both the Kingdom Hearts series and Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy.[29] One of the game designers was Kyohei Suzuki, a veteran of the company's Business Division 4 who had previously worked as a planner for Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and Kingdom Hearts Coded.[30] The team aimed to retain all the original gameplay mechanics that were well-liked by players.[29]
While developing the scenario, the team needed to work carefully, so the game did not come over as too nostalgic. They also needed to make decisions about what could be carried over from the original and what needed adjustment due to changes in social norms since the original's release.[10][11][23] The scenario for the first installment was completed in December 2015.[31] The game is fully voiced, with the original plan being for the voice actors from the CGI movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children to reprise their roles.[23][31] Ultimately, the English characters were recast for Remake.[32] According to Kitase, choosing a new generation of voices for the characters was part of the game's rebirth as Remake.[33]
Rather than using the character models and graphical style of Advent Children, which by that point had been developed using ten-year-old technology, the team decided to create new designs and models for characters: Nomura wished to balance the realism of Advent Children with deformed stylization. Nomura was in charge of the revamped main character designs, while designer Roberto Ferrari was in charge of designs for secondary characters. Character modeling was supervised by Visual Works, Square Enix's CGI development branch.[10][23]
Rather than developing their own engine, Square Enix licensed Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4 to develop the game, with Square Enix and Epic Games Japan working together to optimize the engine for Remake.[34][35] The team also received technical assistance from the developers of Kingdom Hearts III, as the latter game was developed using the same engine.[31] The game's lighting is augmented with the lighting engine Enlighten.[36] To help with the action gameplay and video quality, Square Enix originally partnered with video game developer CyberConnect2, with the two companies keeping in close contact due to different development styles.[10]
In 2017, the game's development focus shifted from being developed with external partners to being a primarily internal project.[24] One of the most significant changes was the fact that the game was planned as a multi-game release: according to Kitase, this was because trying to fit the game onto a single release would entail cutting large parts of the game, which went against the team's vision. By splitting the game into multiple parts, the team can give players more substantial access to areas in the game, such as within the city of Midgar, which was mostly inaccessible in the original.[10] Each game is planned to be on a similar scale to Final Fantasy XIII.[11] The first installment focused on the city of Midgar due to its iconic status among the Final Fantasy community.[33]
Release
Rumors of a Final Fantasy VII remake appeared in 2014.[37] It was announced at the 2015 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) during the PlayStation conference, and received a standing ovation.[38][39] Visual Works created the announcement trailer.[20] Square Enix's stock prices rose to their highest rating since November 2008, and the YouTube release of the reveal trailer garnered over 10 million views in the following two weeks.[40][41] The game was next showcased at the 2015 PlayStation Experience, demonstrating cutscenes and gameplay from the opening sequence.[42]
During the Final Fantasy 30th anniversary opening ceremony event hosted by Square Enix in Tokyo on January 31, 2017 — the 20th anniversary of Final Fantasy VII— the game's first piece of CGI key art was unveiled, along with announcements for a collaboration event with Mobius Final Fantasy.[43] On February 18, Nomura revealed two screenshots, showing off the updated HUD.[44] Due to its lack of footage since 2015, switch to internal development, and other projects Nomura was involved in, there were concerns about the status of the project. Speaking following E3 2018, Nomura stated that the game was in development, with his full attention shifted to it when Kingdom Hearts III was completed.[26][45]
After years without substantial footage, a teaser trailer was shown during PlayStation's May 2019 State of Play broadcast. Kitase announced that the team had wanted to "try something new" on the State of Play broadcast by showing the trailer.[46] The release date, March 3, 2020, was revealed the following month in a second teaser trailer during an orchestral concert dedicated to the music of Final Fantasy VII in Los Angeles.[47] Further release details were announced at the company's E3 2019 press conference, including different editions of Remake.[48] Kitase later clarified at the event that Square Enix had yet to determine the number of games in the Remake series, adding that they were in the process of planning the second installment.[49]
An extended gameplay showcase and demo was playable at E3 2019, demonstrating parts of the opening mission, including some of the exploration, combat system, and first boss battle. The playable demo has received a positive reception in early previews, with praise towards the graphics, gameplay and combat system.[4][50][51][52][53][54] At E3 2019, it won three awards at the Game Critics Awards for Best of Show, Best Console Game, and Best Role-Playing Game,[55] as well as the best looking Unreal Engine game at E3 2019.[56] Extended footage of the demo, as well as an additional trailer, was featured at the 2019 Tokyo Game Show.[57] In December 2019, it was announced that the game would be a timed PlayStation 4 exclusive until 2021, with no further details about its release on other platforms.[58][59] In January 2020, the team decided to push the release date back from March 3 to April 10, 2020.[60] A demo of the game was released on the PlayStation Store on March 2, 2020, covering a part of the first chapter.[61]
On March 30, 2020, Square Enix announced that Europe and Australia would be receiving physical copies of Final Fantasy VII Remake early, due to growing concerns of COVID-19's effect on distribution.[62][63] This does not apply to digital downloads, as they are not directly impacted by the global supply chain. The official release date for digital copies remains April 10, 2020.
Reception
Final Fantasy VII Remake received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic.[64]
Tamoor Hussain, writing for GameSpot, declared that while Remake is only the initial entry in a full reimagining of the original game, "It is rich in details that were previously unexplored, realizes new storytelling ambitions with confidence, and presents fresh perspectives that feel both meaningful and essential." He summarizes that it "tells a smaller, more personal Final Fantasy 7 tale and marries it with a smart mashup of action and RPG gameplay to deliver a must-play experience."[71]
Notes
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق