Yoshinori Kitase talks Final Fantasy VII Remake progress, battle system and more

By Erren Van Duine on February 1, 2017 at 2:05 AM

Following up on director Tetsuya Nomura’s comments from a few weeks ago, producer Yoshinori Kitase spoke at length with Weekly Famitsu on the topic of Final Fantasy VII Remake. During the course of the interview, Kitase touched on the current status of the long-coveted project and shared new insight into the various workings of the staff.

“We’re currently brushing up the scene from the announcement trailer,” Kitase says. “We can now see the line of quality that we’re aiming for more clearly, but there’s still a ways to go.” The team’s goal is to carry this effort through the project’s multiple episode releases.

Famitsu asked how Square Enix plans to close the gap between these releases, or rather, how they plan on keeping people engaged between the as-of-yet unannounced number of games the Final Fantasy VII Remake project will add up to. “Final Fantasy VII expanded through a compilation. We don’t have any fundamental plans on that for now, but since the game volumes won’t be something that we can release in just a few months, we’d like to think of a way to supplement those gaps to maintain interest.”

As for downloadable and smartphone content, Kitase notes he’d like to use Final Fantasy XV as a reference. “A live stream or a program to keep in touch with the users is something I’d like to do, but Final Fantasy VII Remake will be episodic, and if we want to have it go all the way to the end of the original version, then I believe we’ll need to devote everything we got for it, so I have no idea what will happen for things such as filler development [between episodes] and other works.”

Currently the base of the battle system has been solidified. Kitase confirms both Nomura and Mitsunori Takahashi, who worked on the Kingdom Hearts and Dissidia Final Fantasy series, are putting their best into it. Although he can’t say much at the moment, he also stresses they won’t be removing any parts of the original FFVII that were well received, such as the Materia system.

In closing, Kitase hopes to show progress made on Final Fantasy VII Remake sometime this year. He thinks it would be nice if they could have it playable or a trailer for it at an event. Famitsu also asked him about a possible Final Fantasy VI Remake, to which he replied: “Right now, we’re working on Final Fantasy VII… The staff within the company are also saying [they’d like to remake it] but it’s on reserve.”

Final Fantasy VII Remake is currently in development for PlayStation 4. Square Enix recently revealed a new key visual for the game, featuring Cloud and Sephiroth over a backdrop of Midgar.

Via: Game Jouhou, Siliconera.