Final Fantasy 7 Remake Being Episodic: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Logo for the Final Fantasy VII Remake.

During Sony's E3 2015 Press Conference Japanese game publisher Square Enix's revealed the remake to Final Fantasy VII, a game considered by many to be one of the most important and influential games ever to be made. For many years prier to this announcement fans of the original Final Fantasy VII have been clamoring for a remake as the original has not aged very gracefully with very poor graphics by today's standards and some very poor translations in some points. A few days ago at Sony's PlayStation Experience event we finally got our first look at the actual gameplay. It showed that the remake would shift the classic turned based role playing game into a more action oriented direction. Purist were obviously a bit sour at this revelation, but I and many other were still on board with this remake. Then yesterday it was revealed that Square Enix would be releasing the Final Fantasy VIII Remake would be released in episodic chunks. Needless to say this did not go over well with lots of fans of the original Final Fantasy VII, myself included. Now that I have had a chance to calm down and get more information of this topic I just want to metaphorically sit down and talk about this. I want to go over all the pros and cons that releasing the Final Fantasy remake in episodic format will mean in the long run and what other problems it might symbolize in the industry. So let's get started shall we.

Logo for the original Final Fantasy VII.

Part 1: The Facts

Let's first compile everything that we should know before we get into the real meat of the discussion. Final Fantasy VII Remake is a front the ground of remake of the PS1 classic Japanese Role Playing Game Final Fantasy VII which was first released in America the autumn of 1997. Final Fantasy VII is considered by many to be the start of the popularity of JRPGs in the west. Interest in a remake for Final Fantasy VII was sparked after a tech demo for Sony's PlayStation 3 was shown at E3 2006. For years after Square Enix was very ambiguous about the prospect of making a remake of Final Fantasy VII. Going back and forth saying that they were interested in the prospect of making a remake and that they did not have the resources nor the desire to make a remake. Then Square Enix finally decided to make a remake of Final Fantasy VII which they revealed at E3 2015. We finally got our first glimpse of gameplay at PlayStation Experience last Saturday which showed that the remake would have gameplay similar to Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts series. Then on Sunday following the gameplay showing of the remake we received confirmation that Square Enix was planning to release Final Fantasy VII Remake as an episodic series. Square Enix later elaborated that the reason for this business model was that remaking Final Fantasy VII was such a huge undertaking that it just had to be released in separate parts.

Screenshot of the original Final Fantasy VII. 

Part 2: The Good

There honestly isn't a lot of good you can say about this decision, but for the sake of fairness let's look at a few of the positive things that can happen by release Final Fantasy VII Remake episodically. For one, we'll probably be able to get our hands on the gamer sooner rather than later. Square Enix has a bit of a reputation with announcing promising projects and then having them languish in development hell for years. The upcoming Final Fantasy XV started life as Final Fantasy Versus XIII and was meant to be a spin-off game before the project grew so astronomically over its ten year development it became the next official entry into the mainline Final Fantasy series. So it's nice to hear that they are priotitizing getting into the hands of gamers as soon as possible. They have also have promised that each individual part will be self contained and expand on parts of the original game which is nice to hear.

Screenshot of the Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Part 3: The Bad

However, the main reason people are upset with Final Fantasy VII Remake being made episodic is the fact that Square Enix hasn't proven itself very trust worthy in the past when embracing new business practices. One only has to look at Square Enix's mobile game line up to see just how greedy and short sighted this company can be. While they have released a fair number of simple ports of their Nintendo classics we have also seen trash like Final Fantasy All The Bravest. This "game" exists solely because Square thought it would be a great idea to exploit people's love and nostalgia for their classic games by making them pay for imaginary action figures to play a game of swiping their finger across the screen in a game that forces you to pay to win. The sleaziness of Square Enix doesn't stop there, Square is also big on preorder downloadable content and often take what many would consider critical parts of a players arsenal or a crucial part of a game's story and forcing you to pay in advance just to get access to this content. The most recent examples of Square Enix's greedy preorder practices would have to be the infamous Augment Your Preorder marketing campaign for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Augment Your Preorder was basically a demented Kickstarted campaign that demanded that gamers preorder the game in droves in order to unlock different tiers of awards with the ultimate prize of the game being released several days early. The backlash to this campaign was so fierce that Square was forced to cancel the whole thing. The greed that this company has demonstrated makes me extremely leery with them dealing with any kind of Episodic content especially with a game series this popular.

Image from the Final Fantasy VII Remake Reveal Trailer 

Part 4: The Ugly

However, I don't think that greed is the sole motivator for Square Enix's decision to make Final Fantasy VII Remake episodic in fact I don't even think greed is the primary reason. The primary reason for this game being made episodic probably has to do with what has to be a ludicrously high budget. The original Final Fantasy VII in 1997 cost around $45 million dollars to make which at the time was the highest budget for any role playing game ever. To make a game of the same scope with the level of graphical and gameplay quality that people have come to expect from big budget games in 2015 Square would likely need a budget triple or even quadruple that of the original. That is utterly ridiculous and speaks volumes of the just how much skyrocketing development budgets are killing innovation in the big budget space. That not even a game made nearly twenty years ago can just be remade with out any major issues. I'm going to definitely be researching more about how game budgets are handled and how we might be able to start making steps towards fixing this problem.

Compare and contrast of the original Final Fantasy VII for PC and the HD Texture Mod available for the Steam version for free.

In conclusion, I just want to say that I'm severely disappointed that Final Fantasy VII Remake is going to be episodic. I'm sure it will end up being a good game in the long run, but I in good spirits can't buy it the way the are planning of releasing it simply because I do not want to support such greedy business practices. I'd highly recommend buying the PC version of the game on Steam and simply downloading the updated texture mod or getting the PS4 or PS3 digital release. It's just a shame that the remake is being undermined buy so much industry greed and financial troubles. I hope that Final Fantasy XV doesn't suffer a similar fate.