Square Enix didn't share many details about Final Fantasy 7's full remake at E3 2015. However, director Tetsuya Nomura was more forthcoming in a new interview.
The original version of FF7 had very cartoon-like characters. One of Square Enix's goals with the remake, Nomura told Famitsu (translated by Gematsu), is to make them look more realistic:
As for the visual taste, we’re doing them to match today’s visuals and appear closer to reality.
The visual style might be close to the remake's first trailer. The trailer, like CGI movie Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children, gave the characters more life-like proportions:
Part of that video will appear within the FF7 remake. However, Nomura says that they're going to make it even more polished than it is now.
Nomura made it clear in the interview that the remake isn't just a visual overhaul of the game, though. They want to make far bigger changes to the RPG:
Final Fantasy VII is special, and we can’t ‘exceed’ the game by simply making the graphics nicer. That’s not a thing to be excited about.Precisely because it’s a full remake, I want to challenge what’s fun and what’s possible now.
This echoes an interview that FF7 director Yoshinori Kitase gave back in 2011. He had said that he didn't want the remake to be "exactly the same thing." Instead, he wanted to add and remove some features from the game. It's great to hear that that's still Square Enix's goal with this project.
Nomura was a bit vague about what kind of gameplay changes we can expect for the PS4 remake. All he mentioned is that there won't be any new characters and that the combat will be more "realistic." I'm not sure what to make of that second bit. How do you make a game so steeped in magic and monsters more realistic?
Square Enix announced the Final Fantasy 7 remake for PS4 during Sony's press conference. While that's the first platform for the remake, Nomura says, it might not be the last:
You’ll be able to play it first on PlayStation 4, that’s for certain. We’re not thinking beyond that yet, so after that is undecided. Since we’re bringing out PlayStation 4 title after PlayStation 4 title, it’d be great if we can give the hardware and industry a boost
In the meantime, PS4 owners will soon be able to play the "classic" version of FF7 soon. Square Enix is making a port of the PC re-release as well and plans to release it later this year.
