New Final Fantasy 7 Remake Trailer Discussion Thread

For those unaware, Sony recently held a "State of Play"' presentation where they paraded a portfolio of upcoming releases and active projects for the PlayStation 4. One of the games that had a prominent presence during this presentation was the Final Fantasy VII Remake whose official trailer clocked in at around a minute long. The trailer shows off a few gameplay sequences from what appears to be the first few acts from the original game, but obviously with a few more pixels to boot. The trailer then ends with the line "More to come in June," which hints the game will be at E3 2019.

To say the Final Fantasy VII Remake has had a "troubled" development cycle would be an understatement. The first version of the game entered full development in 2015 with Square-Enix partnering with Japanese studio CyberConnect2. After announcing this partnership, it was revealed the remake would be episodic and boot an entirely new combat system. Additionally, Square disclosed the Final Fantasy VII Remake would utilize Unreal Engine 4 rather than an in-house engine. Then, in 2017, CyberConnect2 left the project citing "regular mismanagement" and Square-Enix moved development to an internal production team named "Business Division 1."

The trailer itself is brief, but there are a few critical takeaways from the trailer. First, the character models appear to be "reformed" versions of the Advent Children character models. Second, Square-Enix is fully committing to the game using a version of the Final Fantasy 13/15 combat system. There are, however, plenty of "burning questions" about the game. For example, have been no updates on whether the game will maintain the episodic format initially proposed when the Remake was first revealed way back in 2015. But what say you Giant Bomb?

Oh, if you want a good laugh head on over to Amazon's "placeholder" pre-order page for the Final Fantasy VII Remake. This page assumes the game will be sold in a fully playable state by December 31, 2019.

My biggest takeaway honestly was that it sounds like they've changed Barret's voice actor. He used to be Beau Billingslea (most notably Jet from Cowboy Bebop), and that sure doesn't sound like him anymore. Kind of a shame.

Otherwise it doesn't look that different than the last time they showed it except now there's some Aerith stuff? I'm of the mind that it hasn't actually been that long, and that it feels more like a meme, like Kingdom Hearts III "taking forever" when it wasn't actually in development that long.

I still think FFVII is good, this looks cool, and I look forward to playing it whenever it actually comes out.

Versions of the 13/15 combat system? I haven't played 15 yet, but aren't those dramatically different from one another? 13 is essentially a more visually dynamic version of the older ATB system, with a focus taken off of the more granular moment-to-moment decision-making and instead placed upon the general flow of battle (not to mention the Paradigm System). I was under the impression that 15 was an action game in the vein of Kingdom Hearts.

I definitely do have some burning questions about this game, but first and foremost at this point is:

What the hell is the combat going to be like?

Until we know what they're doing with that, we don't know how everything else around it is going to be altered. Until we know how truly different this is going to be from the original, we won't be able to even begin theorizing about how long this might continue to take.

They should probably just stay radio silent until they have a bunch of concrete details ready, because having another trailer depicting scenes from the opening fifteen minutes of the game (and not much else) isn't inspiring much confidence.

Not gonna lie, this looks great visually, but the gameplay parts don't seem very fun.

Looks great but they really need to nail Cloud's character right. In the first half of the game he was a self assured, confident, cocky bastard. I just hope they don't forget that.

It looks like FF15 and FF7 had a baby.

Funny, I was actually thinking about the remake last week or two weeks ago while stuck in traffic.

The visual looks decent enough, the characters look ok, rehash of AC is fine since that's how the characters are "supposed" to look after decades of conditioning the fans. It looks "right" as in yes, that's how FF7 in 2019 should probably look.

The battle system raises the most questions. 13 combat had a good concept, but less than stellar execution, and play totally to its detriment as the game went on. 15's combat is...not bad, but I find it mostly unnecessarily flashy and complex for what it was trying to achieve. Control was kind of awkward also. It barely works based on the kind of powers Noctis is suppose to have in the "lore", but I can't imagine any one in FF7 pulling similar style of moves.

Also how are they going to handle the materia combo system, which is probably the most interesting thing FF7 out of FF7 gameplay.

Also watching a trailer with its content is actually kind of amusing consider the thing that really sold the game (for me at least) has little to do with what's being presented...it almost has a Kojima-esq quality to it.

I'm super curious about this too, particularly how (or if) they're going to handle the multitude of spells they had in the original. Surely they're not going to use that clunky grenade system they had in FFXV?

The hell you on about with "FF13/15 battle system?" Those two are nothing alike, and it just looks like KH. Or perhaps more accurately FF Type-0, based on the animations. You can clearly see the Attack command blinking, implying that it's being tapped for each slash. This doesn't look like an auto-battle system.

Anyway, good to see we're finally getting some info again, but yeah, it really hasn't been that long, especially if they can still get out the first episode by the end of the year. On the other hand, when FF15 got its big re-reveal in 2013, we still had another 3.5 years to go, and the game was completely overhauled from what we were promised.

Hopefully that doesn't happen again. Please just let Nomura finish this thing.

It looks like a game I'll play to completion, unlike the original. It just didn't keep me hooked all the way through, but I really like that world and those characters. Still, hard to get excited at this point with no time frame or basic information on how it plays. All I can say right now is the graphics are pretty and I like the fact that they are making the combat more action-y.

@relkin: @axersia: You're totally right that 13 is ATB system based, while 15 is not. But between the paradigm shifts & multiple actions per bar, there's very little time where your entire team is standing around to wait for bars to fill up. To the point where you can actually juggle the enemy between multiple characters if you time it nicely. I guess ZP was mostly referring to that faster paced aspect of 13.

Looks fine (not a FF fan, didn't like 7), i think it's a little weird they're going for a FF15 style battle system, that system was made for a character like Noctis who warps around in a large area, i could see the 13 battle system working well here just with 7's abilities mixed in.

They confirmed it's still going to be episodic.

@onemanarmyy: Oh, I didn't realize that was just speculation. I had figured it was going to be an action-rpg like 15 for a while now, but they had put out so little information about the game that I wasn't sure. Knowing ZP's dark fascination with that franchise, I just assumed he knew something I didn't.

A kingdom hearts like character action game would be my preference that sounds amazing. I will be pretty disappointed if this only comes out on PS4 as playing on PC has ruined the console experience. I guess I will have to do what I did with 15 and wait until the DLC, updates, all episodes, and 4k texture pack is all included

I'm starting to wonder if SE will charge the full $60 for each of these episodes. Does anyone think they wouldn't?

Looks cool but would be better with a slightly updated version of the original combat engine IMO. I only played the demo for 15 and it was pretty blah, 13's combat system was ok but i would much rather go back to 7's at this point.

Is this what people wanted? I wanted a modern version of the same game, not a new game with the same story, at that point just make a new story in the same universe IMO.

@oursin_360: I would rather have a new game than a remake but if Square are dead set on remaking VII then i'm glad they're at least changing some things up. Personally I find old school JRPG combat to be tedious as hell.

That being said I would rather they went with something like the Xenoblade Chronicles combat system. As flashy as FFXV's combat was it was also messy and imprecise. I think theres a good compromise to be found though.

I would prefer a FF7 that looks like this but plays like the original, FFXV's battle system was some basic shit but if they manage to incorporate the materia combos, magic, party control etc in an interesting way I could be convinced. FFXIII style system could really work as a bobw but that's clearly not what they're going for, a button masher ft. Cloud is not what I want at all.

Real happy with the way it looks but very skeptical this project will ever get finished (as in all episodes released). I'd predict the first episode will come out (eventually) but when that doesn't sell as well as they hope we've got no chance for the rest.

I was never a big Final Fantasy fan but I know how much people love FF7 so I've just been following this out of curiosity. After this trailer I have to wonder what people actually think they want from the remake now that there's more actual info out there.

It sure seems like this is less a 'remake' as it is a complete re-imagining of FF7 down to it's core components. Is it enough to just see Cloud and co with fancy new models? I guess as someone without any skin in the game so to speak I'm having a hard time understanding what is going on anymore.

Not on my radar until I see release dates.

@ieee_gb: oh man, I hadn't even considered that it probably won't be on PC at launch. FFXV took forever to bring over and KH3 probably never will. My excitement just dropped a few levels more :(

Graphically it looks nice but I don't know. I haven't played XV to know anything about this type of play and I haven't liked an FF enough to finish any after X. Count me as someone who was content with FF7 existing in antiquity. If this isn't a sign that this franchise needs to retire its name I don't know what else is. It's perfectly fine for it to exist in an MMO form because you have decades of great games to pull from for its styyyyyyyle. Single player games need to get refocused at SqEnix because with a few exceptions they're really losing my interest.

I'm not afraid to admit being a fan of the old game. Like yes, many parts of it don't hold up great, but it was weeeeeeird man. It was one of the largest concentrations of the strangest content you were seeing in a single mainstream game at the time. 3 discs! It was a damn TV show boxset equivalent of a video game (excluding PC install discs). The more I think back on my playing of PS1 games, I was playing stuff more for strange and different content and control schemes so JRPGs were great for me in that regard.

@zombiepie: I imagine the announcement of this game (or initial promise of an announcement) may have had a part in the creation of your world renowned FF blog. Happen to recall your reaction to that one tech demo that blew everyones' minds and led to this?

I mean, I'll play it no matter what but...I really want to see what the running around looks like. How are they going to present the world map? as an open world?

Just get the monkey off your back, Square.

Visually, I love the look. I think the characters are spot-on. But holy hell, that gameplay feels as soulless and wrong as everything Square-Enix has done with the series since XII, and I think this is something I'll wind up passing on like XV.

No no, that's Final Fantasy IX.

Holds next to zero interest to me looking at that trailer.

Show Tifa, you cowards! Also, looks about what I expected? i.e. perfectly fine and fun but nothing so surprising that I'm losing my shit. I like FF7 a lot, but the news that they're still splitting this game into multiple parts is a deal-breaker for me. I guess that's my fault since that was originally the plan and they never said any differently after re-starting development, but still...

it looks visually and feels like modern Final Fantasy pretty much taking away anything that made Final Fantasy 7 special. I'm not even that huge of a fan of 7, but it just looks bland and uninteresting gameplay ways. Visually, it all looks great, but this is a video game not a terrible final fantasy movie.

I'll play whatever they produce... but all I really want is the standard FF7 mechanics (ATB and Materia matching) with updated production concepts if we lose snowboarding and other edge case things no big deal but I really thought FF15 fight mechanics was so dull.

That looks . . . truly terrible.

At this point, Square should just let this series die, or farm it out to someone else who might actually know what they're doing.

Lol.. I love all the negative feedback for this game trailer. it's hilarious.
There are some little splinters here and there and other who outright hate it.

I get it, it's milking the franchise BUT if there wasn't demand they wouldn't be doing this. Then the other issue I see is people hating on it when they probably couldn't develop something anywhere near as close.

Funnily enough these are people who would probably buy it anyway "just to see" what it's like. So they end up supporting something they trashed for so long EVEN IF they're going to ebay it later on. Doesn't matter. You still supported it. You hated on it for so long and then you supported it.

Personally, I think it looks like it's going to be an incredible game! I think visually its stunning and i'm glad they're doing this. It's been about time for almost 10 years now, especially in the age of the remake.

Fingers crossed it actually delivers and gives gamers an epic experience!

Release date trailer

will be interesting to see how many hours they manage to pack in this. This is all Midgar right?

That reactor shot looked Chernobyl as fuck.

It can't just be Midgar, right? Right?

That's such a tiny percentage of the original. If this is the size of game we can expect from each episode, this remake won't be done for a looooooooooooong time.

@relkin: Nothing they've shown so far has been past Midgar. Nothing has been past much further than just after you blow up the first reactor.

My guess is this game is going to scale back on a lot of things from the original. It'll scale back parts of the story, anything that was an optional side mission or side quest will be gone. All the chocobo stuff? Gone. All the materia side quests? Gone. All the ways to unlock peoples final limit breaks? Gone, replaced. At best you'll get some mini-games in The Golden Saucer. The overworld is gone. Instead the game will just be a series of corridors, "open areas" and towns, similar to something like FFX or XII.

Let’s just wait and see what they say tonight. They may be trying to recreate that awesome feeling when you got out of Midgar and realized how big that game was. They won’t show that stuff now.

@jesus_phish: If that's the case (and I'm assuming you're correct), it's going to be a profound disappointment; for me, at least.

But also, if this game is just Midgar, how the hell has it taken this long to make?

I mean, we haven't seen a subtitle saying 'Part One'. I'm hoping with the delays they've decided to burn the midnight oil and produce the whole thing.

I can see some limit breaks stuff tied into story or major character side quests, but I could also see that all exist within a skill tree. I won't be sad if there's no more minigame nor no more chocobo racing to get rare materia.

The globe trotting is a question I have since they announce part one will be just Midgar, but I can also see it as a way to really shakes things up between part 1 to part 2 to keep things fresh, however I don't know what the hell that means from a production stand point making something completely different.

If they are going to cut that down...I wouldn't say it is impossible, considering the globe trotting part in FF could be consider questionable filler as it is. I don't know if they will hit all the landmarks and if there's a need to do so.

The combat looks ok even though the scorpion fight seems to run long, but I am guessing if you properly exploit the stagger mechanics as in 13 it could go faster. I am strangely ok with them giving that system another try while mixing in a little of 15. The pause and camera pan looks good. I can see ways for them to bring materia combo back, but rather they will commit to it remains to be seen.

I'll say the gameplay demo at the SE briefing has turned me around a bit? Overall, it looks better than I previously thought. I guess I'm 50/50 on the combat now where as I was 100% no-thanks before as it just looked like FF15 or some other generic action game.

Well they've apparently replaced the entire English voice cast with modern TV drama people which... Sucks.

I mostly noticed it with Barrett, but getting them back to do the original trailer and then screwing them for the main game is super shitty. Cloud and Sephiroth were in a game last year! Man, fuck that.

Now that they have shown a bit more I am looking more forward to this remake than before, but still very confused and skeptical. As for the voice acting, I really don't care, especially if it's a JRPG, I will usually have Japanese language with subtitles.

Eh, not feeling the voice acting at all and although the combat looks cool i would have rather just had the original combat system back. I guess if this is what other people wanted then that's good, but it's definitely not what i wanted.

I haven't even played a Final Fantasy since 13(hated it)

I was replaying FF7 on the switch and i totally forgot about the part where cloud crossdress and whores himselfs out to some mobster stereotype i wonder if this BS still fly's in 2019/2020

the new trailer just dropped:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GBpq_Jq7yn0

honestly, very cheesy dialogue & voices, annoying tired by-numbers orchestral versions of the soundtrack, too-pretty characters nullifying individuality, worrying trend towards pay-to-win DLC's...hopefully we can select japanese voices with subs, and that the music won't be as incessant-sounding as it seems here.

...and i say that as someone who rates ffvii as best game ever, and even own the original soundtrack on CD (4 CD's even).

Your thoughts?