Check out this really stupid article.
Didn’t you all hate Final Fantasy XII?
No.
No.
And XIV doesn't really count. I wanna say that I'm not saying they unequivocally SHOULD make a remake, I too would like them to definitively prove they can make a successful console game this generation first. But it doesn't change the fact that this article has a lot of stupid. Starting with the examples of things that supposedly "wouldn't work" in fancy graphics.
■Anything that involves Cait Sith (who never made much sense)
Um...why? He was in Advent Children AND Dirge of Cerberus and didn't seem to break the universe or "the magic" or whatever. He is what he is. And then the author even says Cait Sith never made sense. So then what would the difference be anyway? Next.
■Anything that involves Red XIII (he tip-toes on his hind legs past guards or something at one point)
Again he was in Advent Children and (however briefly) Dirge. What's the problem? Also, Red never tiptoes past guards on hind legs. He is standing upright in uniform on the ship to Costa Del Sol, but he's standing alone. You see him hiding on the ship during the send off and he's on all fours, he just snuck on board normally and then took on a disguise and kept his distance. Not that big a deal dude.
Why? They could just, y'know...put him in a sailor suit? What kind of point is this? Did you see what he is wearing in Advent Children? I don't think it would be that much of a stretch.
■The Tifa/Scarlett slapfight atop the Junon Cannon
...again, why? They slap each other...? This would be awkward in good graphics how? Next.
■The squat contest between Cloud and the bodybuilders
I swear you're just picking random events. WHY?! Crisis Core HAD a squat contest, it looked fine. I'll bet you didn't even play it.
■Snowboarding down a mountain moments after Aerith’s demise
The fact that he says "moments" makes me think he's picking on the fact that you snowboard so soon after losing her. So firstly, what on Earth does that have to do with the graphics? Secondly, they didn't snowboard for the hell of it, they had to get down the mountain, you want them to trudge down it slowly and depressed? Thirdly, if you did mean the graphics, you're still a moron. How many snowboarding games are out there? Next.
■Hiding aboard a cartoony submarine
...What's cartoony about it? Its a submarine. The bridge is a little over-the-top I guess but no moreso than all the airship bridges in Final Fantasy. Do you even PLAY this series?
■Protecting a giant condor’s eggs
This is unworkable in good graphics how? In FFX you spend the last playable room before the final boss collecting eggs that materialize out of nowhere. This is far less meaningless.
■The whole Don Corneo scenario
I moved this til the end because it is the ONLY ONE that he's potentially right about. They would have to be very careful with the Honeybee Inn and the crossdressing segment because what was silly in lego graphics could quickly become creepy. I still think they could pull it off, it would require some care that they haven't exhibited of late.
1 of 9 that are even close to having a point is not a great ratio dude. But this next sentence is where I really lost interest in what you had to say.
So, wait, Sephiroth is actually a series of ghost clones manifested by, uh, his will to lure Cloud to his resting place to hand him — wait, how does a ghost slay a Midgar Zolom, a president or a flower girl?!
:failsafe:
I am officially convinced you haven't played the game. Or at least not since its release. Ghost clones? Where the hell did you get that from? The 'clones' are the survivors of the Nibelheim Incident that Hojo injected with Jenova cells. Their weak-wills and shattered psyches after seeing their town destroyed were easy for Jenova to dominate. And Sephiroth was in control of Jenova, so he could control them - just as he controlled Cloud.
And for your double-fail, Sephiroth was not a series of clones anyway. The Sephiroth you face for most of the game are pieces of Jenova. Jenova is a shapeshifter under Sephiroth's control. So, at his call, Jenova's body being stored at the Shinra building broke out, morphed into his shape, and killed President Shinra. You kill a piece on the ship, another piece kills Aerith, and you kill another piece at the crater just before finding Sephiroth's body.
While I wouldn't hold it against you for missing some of the intricacies, to get something so basic to the plotline completely wrong in an article ABOUT FF7 makes me really disinclined to take anything else you say very seriously. I could very well stop here, as this line makes my point for me, but I'll continue anyway. I only have to go to the next sentence to find something else wrong.
It wasn’t until 2005′s animated movie Advent Children made all the characters droll super-serious Super Saiyans, and everyone suddenly forgot Cloud once donned a dress and tiara to sneak into a bordello to rescue Tifa by seducing a slumlord. In a place called Honeybee Manor.
Yeah, no one forgot.
And since I'm being nitpicky, he didn't seduce anyone in the Honeybee Manor, it was in Don Corneo's bedroom on the other side of town.
The goofy elements would have to be excised to suit that style.
No they wouldn't.
The game would be stripped of its personality, like Cloud.
Ha ha you're so clever.
It wasn’t until Final Fantasy VIII (a game unfairly mauled all the time because it isn’t FFVII-2)
lol, no it isn't. Its mauled because Draw sucks and the story unravels halfway through. And even then I'd hardly say its "mauled," a TON of people like FF8. FFs IX and X are both beloved and neither of those are VII-2, again, you have no idea what you're talking about.
The FFVII we have now is a bizarre-looking hybrid, and that’s where most of its charm lies. For better and worse, it brought RPGs, and games in general, to the mainstream. If Square Enix remakes FFVII it to resemble Advent Children, where everyone looks like they just stepped out of Rent or Twilight, we’ll have another cold, dreary game about the end of the world with no significance attached. It’ll just be another cash cow in a too-long line of remakes. Square Enix pumps out remakes faster than a gold chocobo at the races, so the chance of a remake remains a faint possibility. On the other hand, we know how much fanboy and fangirl clamor, petitions, wishing and praying gets us. I still don’t see Metal Gear Solid 4 on the Xbox 360, or a fresh Chrono game.
God forbid they set their sights on new Saga, Mana, or tactics-based Front Mission games — or a proper Xeno game. Or The World Ends Without You 2. Or, hell, a new IP.
Here I start to lose his point. I thought he was saying it wouldn't work. All he does is complain about remakes, and that they aren't the games HE wants to be remade. And while that's a fair enough point, have any of their remakes been dissected? Was FFIV's charm completely destroyed in a transision to 3D? Did they have to "excise" entire scenes or characters that wouldn't translate well. No. Did the remakes not make money? I think they did, that's why they keep making them. You've defeated your own point.
And I love how he lists the games he'd rather see revisited such as Chrono Trigger. I thought they'd ruin VII, they wouldn't ruin Chrono Trigger? Also, its the World Ends WITH You.
How would Square Enix handle the battle system? Leaving it as it won’t fly with today’s audience used to Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Fallout.
Mass Effect is a shooter-RPG, Fallout pauses frequently with the use of VATS, and Dragon Age combat is even more laborious than FFVII's. You have to pause CONSTANTLY. VII's NEVER pauses, its already faster. All they would have to do is speed it up, add a new mechanic here or there (as they did in IV with augments). Make the combat like X-2's or XIII's (in terms of speed, I mean). Or just leaving it wouldn't DESTROY its chances.. Lost Odyssey has a pretty standard battle system that no one seemed to complain about.
What about variable choose-your-own-adventure
Yeah! Like all the newer FFs! Oh wait...
[What about] good-or-evil style of play?
Because no one is sick of that 2 dimensional, black and white system yet, right? Let's throw some quick time events in too.
Finally, a remake would be a stupendously expensive venture. Why would Square Enix spend all those hours, money and resources on a game that came out over ten years ago
...Because it would turn a profit? More than they can say for FFXIV.
Square Enix has wasted enough — more than enough — attention on FFVII.
And you clearly didn't even pay attention to it the first time you played it.
Anyways, again, I'm not saying I definitively disagree with the meat of his point. But I'm not willing to give his arguments a whole lot thought with how wrong he is for most of that article.