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Updates | Update Archive | June 2015 | Tetsuya Nomura E3 Interview Roundup (with Commentary)

06/17/2015: "Tetsuya Nomura E3 Interview Roundup (with Commentary)"


Square Enix's Tetsuya Nomura talked to various gaming press organizations yesterday about the projects he's been working on, including the FFVII remake. What follows after the cut is a collection of the most interesting bits from these interviews, from at least four different outlets. Special thanks to Bossanova on the forums for drawing our attention to the GameSpot interview, and Andriasang for translating various tidbits from Dengeki Online and Famitsu's websites.

This is a long post, so buckle up and read on...


Nomura and others have discussed this remake for some time, wanted to do it with the original staff members:

In an interview with Eurogamer, Nomura said that, in addition to the remake being discussed internally on and off for awhile.

"The talks about making this remake, internally it's been mentioned on and off," he told Eurogamer's Aoife Wilson in the interview. "Sometimes we think we can do it, and then sometimes we think maybe we can't. Considering some of the original staff, like Kitase, he's acting as producer, and [Kazushige] Nojima, he's doing the script - we're all getting older! If we keep going like this, the thought occurred to us that we might have to pass this on to a younger generation, without the original developers taking part. It doesn't seem like such a grand intention, but we wanted to do it with the original members."

It's worth noting that Nomura has discussed such a project with his colleagues—including Metal Gear auteur Hideo Kojima—in the past. The bit about getting the old crew back together reminded me of this story, in which Crisis Core director Hajime Tabita noted that the possibility of a remake is greater if the schedules of the original FFVII dev team open up.

Production of the remake was already under way when the PS4 port of the original FFVII was announced:

Again, from Eurogamer:

"When we announced the HD port, the PC port on the PS4, we weren't sure when we wanted to announce the remake," Nomura said elsewhere in the interview. "The production was underway then, so there's no real connection between the timing of the two FF7s coming to PS4. We've announced several different titles coming to the PlayStation 4 like World of Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts 3."

Tetsuya Nomura left the production team of Final Fantasy XV in September of last year, and the PS4 port of FFVII was announced a few months later. That said, we're fairly certain that production on the FFVII remake started sometime in the second half of 2014.

Nomura hopes that the remake's announcement boosts PS4 sales:

Eurogamer, once more:

"There's more and more titles being introduced for the platform, and we're hoping that announcing the remake of Final Fantasy 7, it'll give a boost to people wanting to buy this current generation of console. If we announced the remake after all those titles have been sold, it wouldn't have created such an impact, so that's why we decided on this timing. We wanted to reassure players that PlayStation 4 is coming out with great titles including Final Fantasy 7. That's why we decided to announce the remake."

Not much else to add here. Square Enix is producing several other games for the PS4, including the just-announced World of Final Fantasy and the as-yet-unsubtitled sequel to NieR, so it makes sense that they'd want to hook gamers with a tantalizing carrot that many of them have wanted for years.

At least some of the original FFVII's humorous and strange elements will be kept in:

Eurogamer again, but this is the last time for this post, promise! This bit is somewhat vaguely worded, however:

How the new, slightly darker aesthetic sits with some of the crazier elements of the original game remains to be seen, but it seems they'll be intact. Can't wait to see the delicious sight of Cloud in a dress in glorious HD? "Please look forward to it," said Nomura as the interview came to a close.

Hopefully, this means we'll also see Mukki, Cloud's date with Barret, Cid's ranting to Shera about tea, Elena rolling down a snowbank, and many other lighthearted bits from the original game.

The remake will add and/or change plot points and/or other elements from the original FFVII:

Here's a snippet from a brief GameSpot article:

"We've announced an HD port version on the PlayStation 4, and then we have the remake coming to PS4," Nomura said through a translator. "You'll have this extremely, very, very pretty FFVII existing on the same plane. We feel that if that happens, it’s like, why have the same exact game?

"We think that if a game is on a certain platform and that platform becomes obsolete, then we’d recommend playing the new port version," he added.

Andriasang also notes, translating from this Dengeki Online story: Nomura also says that because Nojima's name is attached to the scenario we can expect some story changes. Plus, via Famitsu: "...And if we are making a full remake, we must use a different approach to make something that matches the times."

It's also worth noting that, in the past, Yoshinori Kitase has said that a remake would be an opportunity to alter things.

This seems to indicate, as hinted at in the E3 trailer, that there will be some story additions in the remake, likely tying into the Compilation of FFVII's entries. Considering how various entities and plot points were handled in the Compilation—including the formation of AVALANCHE, the "Nibelheim incident", Crisis Core's materia system, and the additions of several new characters and locations—the FFVII remake could be a very different game indeed.

The official title, as well as other details, will be unveiled this winter:

At yesterday's Square Enix press conference, more information about the remake was said to be coming in the winter. According to Andriasang, this includes the remake's official name; he speculates that this will happen at the annual Jump Festa show, which has played host to other Final Fantasy-related announcements in the past, including ones related to Crisis Core and Dissidia Final Fantasy.

As for other types of announcements for the winter, Andriasang quotes Nomura: "Details are a little ways off, but we're making progress with something that will not let expectations down."

That's everything for now. If more interviews get posted later on during E3, I'll compile the information in a similar way for a future post. As usual, stay tuned.

Posted by Reeve at 04:29 PM EST


Comments:

on Wednesday, June 17th, Mathew said

Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

on Wednesday, June 17th, just me said

I'm so excited!

on Thursday, June 18th, Clidus said

Awesome post Reeve!

on Thursday, June 18th, Clidus said

Regarding the humorous and strange elements of the game, I think the quote has been taken out of context. The author is speculating, then concludes the article with a quote from Nomura. I don't think the two are related.

on Thursday, June 18th, Reeve said

Thanks Mathew and Clidus! This took a long time to write up @_@

Clidus: It's way too vague, for sure. Guess we'll see.

on Saturday, June 20th, Zantetsuken said

I expect they'll put some dark tone in the story compared to the orginal and some additional plot in order for the other compilation of Final Fantasy VII to make more sense.

on Sunday, July 5th, Managed IT Solutions said

So excited!

on Tuesday, July 7th, Ff7_remake_fan said

Can't wait!!!


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