Note, importantly, that I said "sequel" and not "remake," something radically different from the annual rumormongering about this most famously venerated installment in Square Enix's inexhaustible roleplaying series getting more than a little nip and tuck. Devotees of Final Fantasy VII beg perennially for a remake, but what if Square Enix decided to do a true sequel and call it Final Fantasy VII-2?
That's what fansite FinalFantasySeries is speculating based on a nonspecific teaser dropped by Tetsuya Nomura (FFVII's character designer Final Fantasy VII Advent Children's director) in an interview about the upcoming Blu-ray release of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete. Says Nomura:
FFS: With that notion, does ACC [Advent Children Complete] have any announcements?
Nomura: The release date will be announced. There is also a big announcement elsewhere, please look forward to it.
Note that Final Fantasy X-2, the sunnier singalong followup to Final Fantasy X (i.e. "10"), was the first time Square Enix attempted a full-on sequel using the same characters, locations, and plot points of a prior installment, including a wrap-up that resolved X's loose ends. So to put it all legal-like, we definitely have precedent.
But do we have motive? I don't know, but pressed, I'd have to say nope. In fact I'd venture a guess that the guys with the say-so at Square Enix are probably a little sick of hearing about Final Fantasy VII. I mean, think about it. You're talking about a developer that just spent the last several years designing and releasing a massive "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII" love-letter to fans project to celebrate the original's ten year anniversary in 2007. The lineup included:
- Before Crisis (mobile phone game)
- Dirge of Cerberus (PlayStation 2 action/shooter)
- Dirge of Cerberus Lost Episode (mobile phone game)
- Crisis Core (PlayStation Portable prequel to FFVII)
- Final Fantasy VII Advent Children (CGI-animated movie sequel to FFVII)
- Last Order (animated movie prequel to FFVII)
So let's say you're a Square Enix producer and you have access to this massive pool of creative talent and a palette limited only by your imagination -- would you keep circling back over the same terrain?
Or would you strike out and try to make your mark with something new and even more memorable?
Would The Beatles be as musically beloved if all they'd ever done was re-release Please Please Me and With The Beatles?
Everyone jokes about Final Fantasy being anything but (yuk-yuk), and yet we're talking about a franchise where each successive game totally reinvents the core gameplay. No one else in gaming has managed to repaint the mechanics of multi-party battles in quite as many colors, whatever you think of the results. The difference between the combat system in FFVII and its prequel alone are analogous to EA releasing Madden '08 as an NFL football game, then Madden '09 with something like international rugby rules.
That said, I do have to politely quibble with FinalFantasySeries' assessment of the "mature" ramifications of a Final Fantasy VII remake. True, Final Fantasy VII for the PlayStation -- a sea change to more graphically mature content for the series back in 1997 -- managed to squeak by the ESRB's reviewers with just a Teen rating. To date, the franchise had managed to elude a more controversial 18-and-over Mature.
But I don't see any reason why FFVII couldn't maintain a Teen rating. In fact I can think of at least two reasons it'd be a no-brainer.
The first one's simple: What was Teen in 1997 is no longer so in 2008, for the same reasons stuff that would've garnered an R-rating at the movies a decade or two ago routinely slips by with a PG-13 today. (Does anyone think a comedy like Jason Reitman's Juno would've managed a PG-13 in the 1980s?)
The second one's even more compelling: Advent Children, which actually enjoyed a special one-time theatrical release in April 2006, was rated PG-13. Advent Children's scenes of gore-free violence make the Matrix's seem like kid's stuff, not to mention the creepy "geostigma" plot thread, where a prancing Sephiroth knockoff (Kadaj) pied-pipers whole flocks of disfigured children and tries to turn them into anti-planetary weapons. What ratings boards have never quite figured out is that showing a blood-drenched sword roiling around in someone's gut is half as freaky as not showing the gore and instead honing in on the facial grimacing and blood-curdling screaming. The imagination's a trillion times more powerful than a squirmy mess of fake intestines slathered in buckets of dyed corn syrup, after all.
Back to FFVII: Stuff like a major character's death scene was only shocking to extremely young players who've since grown up, but with blinkered fanboy notalgia, perpetuated a videogame myth about the moment's serious but nonetheless cartoonish significance. A more visually detailed and maturely edited remake could still elude a ratings debacle by simply observing the Hitchcock-ian maxim that you don't have to show a thing to disturb the bejesus out of everyone. Anything more lingering would just be rote voyeurism anyway.
Other stuff:
- A character who commits suicide by jumping off a cliff is far less disturbing in FFVII than the scene near the end of The Last of the Mohicans where Alice Munro (played by Jodhi May) defiantly follows her lover over the edge. And even that scene in The Last of the Mohicans is at best PG-rated. (It's not like you have to show the body knocking around on the way down, or eventually going splat, something Mohicans director Michael Mann instinctively understands.)
- The Shinra plate collapse which cruelly buries untold numbers of Sector Seven's inhabitants is all sound and fury in the PlayStation version, focused far more on the plate's collapse than depicting the death of all the citizens below. A remake could correct this shortcoming by actually driving home the import of a corporate megalith's sociopathic proclivities without dwelling on the squishy stuff. If a PG-rated movie like Star Wars can depict the Death Star wiping out an entire civilized planet, I think a lifelike version of FFVII could easily pull off the plate collapse scene without pushing into M-rated territory (incidentally, the MPAA laughably calls Star Wars's PG-rating "sci-fi violence," as if it ought to be any less disturbing to eliminate billions than to graphically behead just one or two).
- So FFVII has a few swear words. So what. First off, the PG-13 rated 1980s Transformers movie had someone dropping at least one S-bomb, so there's your Teen (13+) ratings precedent. Or Square Enix could just leave the gutter-lingo out. Thematically sophisticated shows like Lost are certainly no less compelling without it.
- Did someone say sexual innuendo? Seriously? The very most FFVII bandies about isn't even approaching the kind of stuff you can get for free and nightly with stuff as seemingly innocuous as Fox's The Family Guy.
The most important point to take away from any of this is that the efficacy of a remake comes down to directorial choices. It's naive to assume graphical progression somehow equals a proportional increase in thematic or graphical intensity. A smart director would use a remake to enhance relationships and political themes without teetering over into spectacle. A bad one would simply use today's higher-fidelity visual palette to shock and titillate.
Whether they're planning a remake, a sequel, or nothing at all, you can bet Square Enix understands the difference.
fans dont want shooters, mobile phone games, etc. they want a FF game with some substance! -no matter what the rating is. if they remake 7, it should be a dramatic tasteful improvement in presentation.
Not to sound like a 'fanboi,' but personally I'd like to see a remake of this game. Sure, a sequel would be nice, but it shouldn't be too complicated to actually remake it with updated graphics. I think the risk that they would run is deviating from the original game TOO much.
Sure, it's simple to say that perhaps Square could come out with something "better and more memorable," but at the same time an actual remake of FFVII with updated graphics would hit not only the demographic of 'fanbois' who played it in days gone by but also a completely new generation of young people who have never experienced the game the way it was originally intended because they are hindered by the graphics of the game when compared to game that are coming out now.
I think that, after hearing fans scream for a remake for so many years, it would be a mistake for square not to make one. Personally, I never played a FF beyond 9, and I couldn't even finish it because it was just..lacking. Remake, imo.
Not to sound like a 'fanboi,' but personally I'd like to see a remake of this game. Sure, a sequel would be nice, but it shouldn't be too complicated to actually remake it with updated graphics. I think the risk that they would run is deviating from the original game TOO much.
Sure, it's simple to say that perhaps Square could come out with something "better and more memorable," but at the same time an actual remake of FFVII with updated graphics would hit not only the demographic of 'fanbois' who played it in days gone by but also a completely new generation of young people who have never experienced the game the way it was originally intended because they are hindered by the graphics of the game when compared to game that are coming out now.
I think that, after hearing fans scream for a remake for so many years, it would be a mistake for square not to make one. Personally, I never played a FF beyond 9, and I couldn't even finish it because it was just..lacking. Remake, imo.
No offence but this article is a bit silly, let me explain why :o)
First off, all the spin-off games from FFVII which have come about from the 10 year anniversary of the original seem to be gravitating toward a release that would finish this celebration of FFVII: a remake, definitely not a sequel.
Like you said in your article: Advent Children is a sequel. Crisis Core is a Prequel. So why (and where in the timeline) would SE make another sequel without remaking the original to fit with the (very similar) graphical styles of Crisis Core and Advent Children?
Also, have you send the ending to Crisis Core? The ending that is only available when you play it through TWICE? Which is a graphically updated introduction to the original FFVII which says 'To Be Continued in FFVII'. Square Enix would not be silly enough to include a teaser like that about a game which is no longer in production (you can't buy PS1 FFVII new anymore).
In a nutshell, I disagree. Remake, not sequel :o)
This is old news....
I've already heard that Square Enix (SE) will be remaking (sequel), whatever you want to call it. It's more of remaking though... because it's still the same story and everything, just re-animation (graphics) of VII.
So basically I agree with DuncanMcD, Remake, not sequel.
and you wrote from Nomura: There is also a big announcement elsewhere, please look forward to it.
key word: big announcement elsewhere. meaning the announcement won't be made when the Blu-ray version of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is released.