Gaming fans are acutely aware of the fact that we live in a gaming age full of remasters and remakes. If you don’t believe us, you can look at all the games that Nintendo has announced for the Switch this year and the rumors about what else might come out for that system this year, and you’ll see plenty of them. Then, companies like Square Enix are bringing back some of its most popular titles in remake form so that people can see them with new eyes. But could Final Fantasy VI be the next title to get such treatment?
It might be odd to hear that question asked, given that the seventh entry is the “most popular” title in the saga. However, the sixth entry led to the story and characters that came after in many ways. Plus, some feel that Final Fantasy VI is the better title when you compare the original versions. It’s got a loyal following, and producer Yoshinori Kitase knows that. However, in a video chat with Julien Chieze that someone translated on Twitter, the producer noted that it would be incredibly hard to do a remake for that title due to the time it would take to do:
“If we were to remake Final Fantasy VI in the same vein as FF7 Remake, it might take twice the amount of time it has taken to make the FF7 Remake series. The volume we will need to work with is much more than FF7 and has more party characters too,” Kitase told Chieze. “We would probably need to prepare a lot of things, so I can’t imagine that to be a task we have the resources to take on at the moment. However, many people, even within the company, have often asked whether we would consider an FF6 remake, and although I don’t have the answer, I am very happy to hear that!”
For context, he noted that making the first two entries in the remake series took about ten years, and fans will remember that most of that decade was just making the first game! After all, it had some development issues it needed to work out.
So, for the sixth entry, you’d need to account for those kinds of woes and others. Plus, as another Square Enix member noted in a past interview, it would be harder to render that game’s world and characters because of it being 2D sprites versus rough 3D models like Cloud and crew had.
