Five Reasons An HD Remake of Final Fantasy 7 Would Suck

FIVE REASONS AN HD REMAKE OF FINAL FANTASY 7 WOULD SUCK

I’m sure the title says it all. There’s no real reason for me to go into a lengthy introduction here, but I still feel compelled to do so. Why? Because there is something that I would like to make vehemently clear to everyone; I would still like to see an HD remake of Final Fantasy 7. Sure, it would inevitably suck, but wouldn’t it be badass to see Tifa in all of her big, bouncy boobed glory trouncing around as a more realistic version of herself? I think so.

Final Fantasy 7 holds a special place in many gamer’s hearts. Personally, it’s not my all-time favorite. That title goes to Final Fantasy 6 (aka Final Fantasy 3 on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System). However, FF7 does slide in at a close second.

Ever since Sony and Square Enix unveiled the surprise HD trailer for the game they claim will never exist at E3 back in 2009, fans have been chomping at the bit for Square to FINALLY make this game. Unfortunately, both Sony and Square appear to be sticking to their guns and an HD remake of Final Fantasy 7 will more than likely never be more than… well… a fantasy.

But what if Square Enix did decide to do it? It is possible. It can be done. But would it really be worth it to them or the fans to see this game come to fruition? I think not. And here’s why…

#1. TERRIBLE VOICE ACTING:

If there’s one thing Square Enix has made perfectly clear to us since the release of Final Fantasy X it’s that voice acting really isn’t their forte. In fact, FFX is a shining example of why a Final Fantasy 7 remake just shouldn’t happen. Anyone who’s played the game knows that the primary element that dragged that game down was the horrific, and often times laughable, performances of the characters ( we all remember the “laughing” scene from FFX, right?). In fact, if not for the poor performances, FFX had the potential to be great game. I enjoyed the battle system and the ability to switch characters in and out of battle on the fly made leveling up a little less painful and time consuming. It had a compelling story and the world was full of life (by the way, I hear through the grapevine that an HD version of FFX will eventually be released on the Playstation 3… Yeah. I don’t care either).

Sadly, Square has yet to learn its lesson on voice acting. I didn’t bother with Final Fantasy 11 so I don’t know if there was any voice acting in it or not. I assume not simply because the game was an MMO rather than a traditional game in the series. But that brings us Final Fantasy 12. I really can’t say whether or not twelve was a step up from ten or not. I’m torn. In some ways it seems like it is, but I also can’t get passed how terribly bland the performances were. It almost seems like the directors said, “Okay, we tried to put a little too much emotion into FFX, so this time around I just want you guys to be completely devoid of emotion and we’ll see if that works better.” And Final Fantasy 13… Oh dear, sweet, baby Jesus. I won’t even go into how horrible that game is as it would require a separate blog post of its own. Let’s just say it sucked and leave it at that.

So who’s to say that the voice acting for an HD remake of FF7 would be any better? I highly doubt Square would spring the extra cash for the Advent Children cast especially considering the cost of re-creating a massive game like FF7 would be in the first place. And quite frankly I’m not entirely convinced they would be the best choices for voice actors anyway. Don’t get me wrong. There were one or two good picks there, but not enough to get me excited about it.  

I am willing to concede that the voice acting in a remake of FF7 would no doubt be better than what we heard in FFX, but that really isn’t saying much since just about anything would be better than FFX. Given Square Enix’s track record for voice acting in video games you and I both know they would find some way to fuck it up. This brings me to my next point…

#2. TEXT TO SPEECH… NOT SO GOOD:

We have to remember that back in Final Fantasy 7’s day, developers still had to deal with some major technical restrictions from the consoles. The original Playstation (from here on out referred to as PSOne) was nothing like the current generation and in many ways was very inferior to the PS2. Voice acting wasn’t necessarily new territory for video games, but it wasn’t being fully explored either. Final Fantasy 7 wasn’t even a fully 3D experience. Far from it. The visuals were pretty damn good for the time and definitely a huge leap from the 16bit era of gaming, but still nothing like we are used to today.

Here’s what I’m getting at: Even for its time, FF7 was overflowing with content and because of the technical restrictions of the PSOne, the developers were still forced to tell one hundred percent of the story through text. And that also meant that character models with limited animations capabilities still had to emote through dialogue. It was still better than anything that came before it. Characters could move their arms, blink their eyes, bend/hunch over, etc, but they couldn’t smile or move their lips. They couldn’t use motion capture to give the characters that realistic edge that the games of today contain. Therefore, the developers at Square had to use their noggins in order to keep the game interesting.

So how does this affect the future of the HD Final Fantasy 7 remake? Let me put it to you this way; if you thought the cut scenes in the Metal Gear Solid franchise were long, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Some of FF7’s major dialogue scenes go on for a long time. But the advantage of having them text based is that you can easily breeze through them. You don’t have to worry about the emotional response of the character. You can always come up with that in your head later. We could zip through those scenes! 

Now try to imagine those same scenes reenacted with professional voice over. There would be dramatic pauses, real “sighs” and not just text. The dialogue scenes would go on FOREVER!! I don’t care how good your voice actors are, there is no way in hell I’m sitting through Cloud’s constant banter about a past that isn’t even his for longer than five minutes. Worse yet, we all know the second they even think of changing the dialogue, all hell is going to break loose.

Admit it! If Square or Sony changed even so much as one fuckin’ word, NAY! If they changed even one syllable in the game, at least half of the FF7 fan base would bring the wrath of pissed off nerds down like Judge Judy’s gavel. And we’d never hear the end of it either. “I can’t believe they made Barret say ‘friggin’ instead of ‘fuckin’! I hate this game! They should never have made it!”

Ugh… I can see the Twitter posts in my head now…

#3. REMAKES INEVITABLY SUCK:

Face it! It’s a fact of life. Just the simple fact that the term “remake” is in the title or mentioned in conversation is enough to doom the game before it hits shelves.  

Anything good “remade” is cursed. Period.

It would make sense if the game sucked when it was first released, but it didn’t. It went on to become the standard by which all other Final Fantasies are judged and to this day, they have yet to create a true successor to seven. At least if the game sucked they could use the extra time to really dig deep into the bones of the game and figure out what went wrong so they could fix it. But NOOOOOOOOOO! They gotta go back and mess with a game that is considered a holy relic among devout FF worshipers. It’s like if the new Pope just suddenly decided that his hat would look better if he pissed on it.

The only way any game – or anything else for that matter – should ever be remade is if it sucks. And I mean really sucked. As in, the game has maybe five fans… in the world.

#4. GLITCHES… THE GOD DAMN GLITCHES!!

Home console gaming is nothing like it used to be. Load times. Scratched disks. Hard drives. These are just a few of the reasons some people still own a Sega Genesis. We didn’t have to deal with those things back in the day. And the term “glitch” usually meant there was something really cool you could do in the game. Even as recent as the PS2 game glitches were minor things that often lead to great things.

Final Fantasy 7 had its fair share of glitches too. The W-Item Materia trick being one of my personal favorites.

I’m fairly certain that an HD remake on PS3 or some other current generation system would have its fair share of cool glitches too. Like a game breaking glitch that corrupts your save files within five minutes of playing and could potentially corrupt the save files of other games on your system. Yeah. Wouldn’t that be cool? Better yet, wouldn’t it be awesome if every time you started playing the game you had to sit through a twenty minute download of the most recent “patch”? Awesome!! Or maybe when you get halfway through the game a glitch causes you to become permanently stuck in one area of the game because something you were supposed to get suddenly melted into the floor and now you’ll NEVER get it back!? I would totally play that kind of game!

Yep. No sarcasm there. None… None at all. Totally would play it. There’s nothing wrong with the current generation of gaming consoles… nothing at all. Everything is fine. Great….. Juuuuuuust great….

Aaaaaand the final reason is….

#5. IT WOULD BE EXCLUSIVELY RELEASED ON A NINTENDO CONSOLE:

After all those years of waiting and begging for this remake, it finally pays off. The developers spend as long as seven years (cuz everything pertaining to Final Fantasy 7 revolves around the number 7) working on the game secretly, during which time Nintendo unveils a next generation console capable of handling everything Square throws at it and the CEO of Square Enix ultimately decides that the Ultra Super Cool Wii U 64 Entertainment System 2 is the console of choice.

Final Fantasy fans everywhere are suddenly found dead in their apartments.