Final Fantasy VII Remake is coming in just over one month. The story, however, has been a part of people’s lives for 23 years.
If you’re a fan of Final Fantasy VII, there’s one many you should be thanking, and that’s game producer Yoshinori Kitase.
Kitase brought the original Final Fantasy VII to life in 1997, and he is once again at the wheel of the franchise for the remake.
He was one of the driving forces behind recreating the game for a new generation and, if Kitase has his way, he will continue to work on this story for the rest of his career.
“Final Fantasy VII is a game which, if it just stayed as the original, would just be remembered as something from the past and people wouldn’t be as engaged with it. I think in order to be something that continues to be loved and followed by future generations, we may have to keep updating it as we’re doing now. And in 10 years time, 20 years time, it may need to be done again! So, even if this is the only thing that I do in the rest of my career, I won’t be disappointed.”
Kitase decided to release the Remake in separate chapters, each chapter being the length of an entire game. The first chapter, which comes out next month, will only encompass the Midgar section of the original game.
In the 1997 release, Midgar was maybe four or five hours of gameplay depending on character leveling. In the Remake, a lot of story is clearly being added in to make it a full-on game in its own right.
Kitase said that the next chapter should come much faster than the first. He has let it be known in the past that the creative team was already hard at work producing the next installment of Final Fantasy VII Remake and would not be taking any kind of break after the first chapter’s release.
“I think we’l probably get straight into it,” he said.
When discussing the episodic rollout, Kitase said that it was due to Square’s desire to make this more than just a nostalgia piece.
“If we were to make it a 100% one-for-one remake of the original game, I think people would like it but it would just be, ‘Oh yeah, I remember this. This was great, how nostalgic,’ and that’s all you get.”
Final Fantasy VII Remake will be releasing on the PlayStation 4 console on April 10, 2020.
