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Above Naoki Hamaguchi was
inspired to design games
after playing FFVI.
Right Kazushige Nojima has
been a writer on many Final
Fantasy games, including the
last mainline one, FFXV.
Below Yoshinori Kitase was
director on the original Final
Fantasy VII back in 1997.first game in the project we really set
ourselves the objective [that] we have
to have that story, but with the same
volume of gameplay as a numbered
Final Fantasy game, otherwise it
wouldn’t really feel right to us.
The approach that we took was
essentially after we’d received the
basic structure and the story outline
from Mr Nojima, we’d then go down
and start the level design and work
out how to structure this as a
standalone game in its own right –more about them, [when] they want to see this
original story, the only version of the game available
would be that original PlayStation version from 23
years ago. So I really had it in my mind that I wanted
them to be able to experience that with the latest
gaming technology, modern graphics, and modern
exposition, which is one of the big reasons why we
started working on the project.OPM: At what point in development did the team
decide to focus this game just on Midgar?
YK: I mean, it was very early on actually that we
decided to make that decision – when we were
looking at the plot of the game and how to plan
out the overall picture. It became clear that in
order to show everything in Final Fantasy VII in
the level of detail, the level of realism that we
wanted to do, and fill in all the gaps. Again, there’s
a lot in the game which the original presentation
of the game is quite abbreviated in some ways,
there’s bits that the imagination fills in. And you
obviously have to fill those in for a more modern
style of realistic portrayal.
We realised quite early on that if we were going to
do that we had two options for the game. The first
one would be to force everything into a single game
title, but that would have wound up as a very
choppy, abbreviated, kind of a digest of the story and
we couldn’t show absolutely everything in there. The
other alternative would be to focus solidly on one
area, depict that in the level of detail we wanted to
do, but make it more than one game. So it became
very clear that that was the better way of giving the
fans what they wanted, which is why we made that
decision for the current plan.OPM: The Midgar portion sticks strongly in people’s
minds. But that bit is only a few hours long. In
what ways have you expanded it into a full game?
Naoki Hamaguchi: When we first got the rough
scenario outline, the plot, from the story writer Mr
[Kazushige] Nojima, it already had a fair amount of
additional detail in it. But when the decision was
made to focus just on the story in Midgar in thisThe action feels
properly weighty
in the Remake.“OBVIOUSLY YOU
HAVE TO FILL
THOSE [DETAILS]
IN FOR A MORE
MODERN STYLE
OF REALISTIC
PORTRAYAL.”