Final Fantasy VII REMAKE - General News Thread

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It's happening? A FFVII Remake is happening?

  • Yes

    Votes: 12 66.7%
  • No

    Votes: 6 33.3%

  • Total voters
    18
  • Poll closed .
Oct 26, 2017
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Tetsuya Nomura Reveals New Details on Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Here are all the other interesting tidbits from the latest Final Fantasy VII Remake interviews with Tetsuya Nomura, translated below.
First are details on Hollow, Final Fantasy VII Remake‘s theme song:
Tetsuya Nomura:Hollow uses a male lyricist and is rock-themed in order to reflect Cloud’s feelings. The song is supposed to evoke rain, and I wanted to avoid changes in the song’s image depending on the language, so we only recorded an English version. The lyrics were written by Nobuo Uematsu and Kazushige Nojima, who was really into it. When Nojima wrote the lyrics in Japanese, he titled the song “Empty Sky”, and when translating the lyrics, the official title became Hollow.”
Next on the list is the character design. Back in June 2019 during the E3 period, Tetsuya Nomura lengthily spoke about Tifa and Aerith’s designs in another interview we translated. Nomura now mentioned how the very first character redesigned for the Remake was Barret.
Tetsuya Nomura: “The amount of realism added to Barret’s design compared to his original design served as a guideline on how much realism to add for remaking the other characters’ designs. As for Red XIII, his original design surprisingly already looked quite realistic, so we simply recreated it with more details, and he didn’t change much. In the past though, he equipped a hair ornament as a weapon, but this time, we changed it to being his collar so it’s more visible. The three Turks members were redesigned by Roberto Ferrari. Since they all wear simple suits, we added more details to better express their personalities.”
Coming up next are new comments regarding the Japanese cast. Nomura explained how Red XIII had very few lines in Advent Children, so he was voiced by Masachika Ichimura making a special appearance. Ichimura is more of an actor than a seiyuu, and the only major character he voices is Pokemon‘s Mewtwo. Since Red XIII has many lines in the Remake, the development team decided to recast the role. Red XIII is now voiced by Kappei Yamaguchi, a veteran seiyuu known for many anime and game roles including Ranma.
Tetsuya Nomura: “Red XIII is a character who needs a voice who can handle a wide variety of tones, and I thought Kappei Yamaguchi was perfect for that, so we picked him.”
Nomura also spoke about Cloud and Tifa’s voices during the flashbacks of their childhood:
Tetsuya Nomura: “We had a lot of trouble finding someone who fitted Young Cloud’s voice. In the end, we decided on a child living in a rural area. They came to Tokyo with their parents to record. I’m happy we were so meticulous and patient with the casting because their voice was perfect. It matches the delicateness, cuteness, the husky feeling, and the shadowy voice Cloud had at that age. Tifa, voiced by Ayumi Ito, has a cute but husky-like voice, but we managed to find someone who fitted that for Young Tifa right away.”
Nomura also highly praised Masahiro Kobayashi, the actor who voices Barret:
Tetsuya Nomura: “Barret is someone so badass he decided to replace his lost arm with a weapon. The extreme way of voicing him that Masahiro Kobayashi did fits perfectly. He really got into the character, without the need for directions, and most of the lines were one takes. Barret is really charismatic and interesting in the Remake. I tend to like old guys characters like him, and he’s my favorite”.
Lastly, we have Cloud:
Tetsuya Nomura: “Cloud in Final Fantasy VII Remake is weird. There are many times when he tries to act cool but fails or acts awkwardly. He gets nervous where most people wouldn’t. This might surprise you, as the Cloud in Advent Children was cool. But that’s because it was post-FFVII Cloud, plus we were limited, so we focused on emphasizing his cool side. However, in the original game, Cloud had many comical or lame moments, and this is what we went for with the Remake. I asked Takahiro Sakurai, who voices Cloud, to reflect that in his acting. I hope you’ll enjoy it.”
We recently translated an interview with Takahiro Sakurai chatting about voicing Cloud in FF7R.
Next, Tetsuya Nomura spoke about the new characters found in Final Fantasy VII Remake. One of the new characters, Soldier Third Class Roche, was designed by Roberto Ferrari.
Tetsuya Nomura: “I didn’t give any particular instructions for Roche’s design, and Ferrari had already done the first version, so we only changed it a bit before finalizing it. His first design was a bit too sharp and serious-looking compared to his easygoing personality. There are many other new characters besides Roche, but they mostly appear in sidestories rather than in the main story.”
Next, Tetsuya Nomura spoke about Final Fantasy VII Remake‘s graphic style:
Tetsuya Nomura: “It’s close to a photorealistic style, but it’s also different. Many iconic elements of the original were in the deformed style, so the Remake uses “realisticness in the range of the original’s deformed style”. ”
We also have comments on the battle system of FFVIIR:
Tetsuya Nomura: “I already mentioned this in the past, but since development began, we redid the battle system many times. Real-time and ATB are inherently opposed, so fusing both necessitated a lot of trial and error. I can’t thank enough the staff who persevered and shaped the battle system into what it is now, overcoming this challenge and managing to find the right balance.”
Nomura also mentioned how they included many different battle situations and enemy patterns, including flying enemies and a 3D element. This way, controlling Cloud at all times isn’t the most efficient way do handle things, and it’ll make players experiment with the other characters. He also mentioned the Remake has a lot of mini-bosses to let us fully enjoy the battle system. He also spoke about how the battles are incredibly vivid, be it the various effects when using magic or all the battle dialogue:
Tetsuya Nomura: “We heavily focused on the game’s atmosphere and immersion during battles. Maybe we overdid it when it comes to dialogue during battles (laughs). Recording everything was pretty difficult. At peak period we had up to 9 recording sessions a week, dividing them between two or three different studios. It might be the game with the most voiced lines I’ve worked on. Overall, in over 20 years of game development, Final Fantasy VII Remake was probably the most grueling project I worked on (laughs)”
Having the characters speak so much during battles was an idea from Motomu Toriyama, the co-director of Final Fantasy VII Remake.
The overall reception at events and from the debug team was very positive, and Nomura is confident in the game. He pointed out how the Remake‘s objective is to both satisfy the old fans and make players who never experience the original get why it’s so great. Next, Tetsuya Nomura shared details regarding the scale of Final Fantasy VII Remake, story changes, and new events:
Tetsuya Nomura: “I know many are worried since the Remake project is in multiple games, and the first game only depicts Midgar. Don’t worry. It’s a highly dense game, and it doesn’t end after a few hours like the Midgar part in the original. There are many new events in the main story. Like a scene where you end up visiting Jessie’s parents, eating dinner. Each member of Avalanche is much more detailed compared to the original game, with new events to boot. By the time players leave Midgar, I’m sure they’ll be satisfied.”
Some content also didn’t make it into the final game, and yet it’s still on 2 Blu-ray discs. Nomura explained the development team prioritized quality over quantity:
Tetsuya Nomura: “We made the sidequest content to be as big as the main story. At the beginning, the development team readied even more content, but we wouldn’t have been able to do everything without cutting corners, so we prioritized quality. We wouldn’t have been able to finish the game otherwise. Despite that, the game is quite big, there are many places you can visit, and you can even move around using vehicles at some points.”
We also heard about another iconic scene, the Shinra HQ building infiltration scene, and how its stairs climbing part was recreated in the Remake:
Tetsuya Nomura: “Each character climbs the stairs at a different speed, and the dialogues changes depending on what you do as well, so you should try and experiment.”
Lastly, here is Tetsuya Nomura’s message for the fans and everyone looking forward to Final Fantasy VII Remake:
Tetsuya Nomura: “The Remake will be releasing soon, but it’s not like it’s overwriting the original FFVII. The original game is the source of everything, and thanks to it, we were able to make a new, unique experience. Fans of the original game will have a different, new experience compared to when they played the original. And I hope those who discover everything with the Remake will enjoy it too. This is the first part of the Remake, but it’s still a full-fledged game, and you’ll be satisfied after playing it. Once you try out the game, you’ll definitely have a hard time putting it down. Please look forward to it.”
That’s all regarding Tetsuya Nomura’s comments on Final Fantasy VII Remake. It’s highly likely such lengthy Japanese interviews with actual new details won’t be happening until the game’s launch. Famitsu will definitely have a huge feature on the game the week of its release, so look forward to our future coverage as well.
 
Feb 19, 2018
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Just a heads-up regarding the boss battle and its attacks.
It's much easier to react not to Scorpion's telegraphs via animation (although possible, it's often really tight), but the name of the attack he's readying highlighted above his healthbar.
It comes off way in advance so you can react easily.
I'll have to give that a shot, gonna be tough breaking the habit of watching for the actual animations though.
 

Storm

Warrior of Light
Oct 26, 2013
3,351
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Switzerland

Damn wall was broken

seeing the area with top-view perspective is giving me major nostalgia of the original, its almost identical imagine a mod to play in that angle
 
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Likes: Cloud_CR
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Final Fantasy VII Remake producer Yoshinori Kitase and co-director Naoki Hamaguchi discuss rebuilding Midgar

PlayStation Blog has published a new interview with Final Fantasy VII Remake producer Yoshinori Kitase and co-director Naoki Hamaguchi, who discuss the design decisions made in rebuilding the city of Midgar as seen in the opening movie.

Here are the developers’ comments:

. Regarding the opening scene, which shows an area devoid of life surrounding the city, Kitase said, “We didn’t want to go over the top with it. But there is very much the nuance that [Midgar] is damaging the surrounding area.”
. Regarding whether the development team used Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children as reference material for rebuilding Midgar, Hamaguchi said, “We did refer to Advent Children and other previous series’ work when rebuild Midgar. But one of the main things we actually set out to redo was the scale of the city itself. The original wasn’t that realistic if you consider the size of the individual buildings and how big they were in comparison to the overall city. It was quite condensed; we really set out to make Midgar realistic. The size between the buildings, the density… that’s one of the big things we set out to change.”
. Regarding whether the development team has a fully-designed topographical map of Midgar, Hamaguchi said, “We haven’t done it all to the same quality or same level of detail as the actual areas you do get to visit in the game, but we have mapped out the entire city and what’s in each of those areas.”
. Regarding whether Midgar’s design is feasible in the real world, Hamaguchi said, “You know the structure of Midgar; you’ve the big central pillar, and each sector is supported by its own sub-pillar. We worked out the right size and construction, how big those pillars would need to be to physically support the weight of the plate on top of them. Also the honeycomb structure of the pillars and where the tunnels would have to go for it to still work as a physical structure. That has all been mapped out and we understand quite a lot of detail about the realities of how Midgar would be constructed as a city.”
. Regarding everyday life in Midgar, Kitase said, “We really wanted to show the everyday lives of Midgar’s citizens. [Partly] to show how they lived in this massive city powered by Mako energy, how and when they’d be using it, to tell that aspect of the story. The original version went straight into the bombing mission. We wanted that feeling that things were already underway, you were in the middle of the action. Yet if you immediately went from there into the panic caused by the bombing mission afterwards, you wouldn’t understand the impact it had on the inhabitants’ everyday lives before that event interrupted them. That’s why we started with this domestic kind of scene.”
. Regarding the ongoing construction of the city, Kitase said, “The idea is that the city is being built from the center outwards. You can also sense the different architectural styles as you go out from the central pillar, with high-rises on the city edge. We’ve put quite a bit of effort into making you feel like it is modernizing as the city builds outwards.”
. Regarding the playground, Hamaguchi says, “Within each sector you’ve got the difference between rich and poor. Each plate is its own city. There are some areas within those that are older, beaten up. The playground is used to show there are downturned areas that aren’t so well off in the city areas too.”
. Regarding the Mako reactor, Kitase said, “Up to [this point in the opener] we’ve seen the benefits of living with Mako. It supports people’s comfortable lifestyle in the city. But the depiction here of the Mako reactor turning on is that it’s not all sunshine and rainbows; there’s a darker side to Mako as well.”
. Regarding the appearance of Loveless Street, Midgar’s entertainment hub which is notably close in proximity to Reactor No. 1, Hamaguchi said, “The player gets to see how the [Reactor bombing] impacts the city. We want them to feel conflicted about the effects of their actions. That’s why we depicted this area in such detail.”
. Regarding Shinra Headquarters, Hamaguchi said, “We didn’t want to mess with the outer form of the building, because it could really affect people’s memories of what Midgar should look like. The inside though, like the floor structure, has seen major rearranging. It’s something we want players to discover when they’re inside.”
. Regarding Midgar itself, Hamaguchi said, “The core concept we worked on was that the player must be able to experience Midgar for themselves. Each individual location within has distinctive concepts and personalities. There’s a different style of gameplay experience waiting in each one of them.”
. Regarding the game’s lighting technology, Hamaguchi said, “We’ve used new tech to enhance the game’s lighting, to make the city of Midgar feel as real as possible. A network of over 100 synced PCs do copious physics simulations, calculations to work out the exact realistic reflection and how the lighting beams will bounce off any object in the game. Through doing that we managed to create amazing atmospheric lighting for the city.”
 
Feb 19, 2018
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That's honestly how it feels with some people at this point. Takes two minutes to google all relevant information yet so many are still spouting such ill-informed bullshit just for the sake of being angry and contrarian. It's ironic that as information has become easier to access people have gotten proportionally stupid/ignorant.