Final Fantasy VII Remake’s tale and development are very curious because the game was first announced in 2015. When the trailer first dropped, it had a lot of people excited. However, then things went a bit off the rails as development was anything but basic. The title wasn’t just an “upgrade” of the game. Instead, it was a full-on remake, leading to multiple dev issues, including a complete restart of the game at one point. However, the wait was well worth it when it finally came out in April 2020.
The game was pretty much a masterpiece and a shining example of how remakes should be done. The overhauled graphics for the PS4 brought the characters to life in ways never done before, not even with the Advent Children movie. Plus, there was more depth in the game than ever before, which players appreciated to a certain extent. However, the game had a few issues that gamers weren’t sure about. The first was that the game wasn’t the full title from the PS1.
Final Fantasy VII Remake would instead be just the Midgar saga and would end once that part of the story was done. That “focus” allowed the team at Square Enix to load in more side quests and bring more depth to crucial moments from that part of the game. Gamers appreciated some of it, and other details weren’t.
The biggest twist on the formula, though, had to do with The Whispers. These were entirely new characters in the game and were there to serve as a kind of “Time Police.” They appeared when Cloud Strife and friends were about to diverge from the path of the main game. Every time they tried, The Whispers interfered. That bugged players because the original game was great and it didn’t need this element to it in their minds. That went double when the story started to diverge from the known path at the end of the game.
Final Fantasy VII Remake recently had a blog series end where the team talked about the game and its many nuances. Co-director Motomu Toriyama was there in the last entry and talked about how The Whispers won’t be able to affect the following title:
“As it says at the end of the game ‘The Unknown Journey Will Continue,’ and Cloud and his friends will be on that journey for a while yet. From here on in the Whispers cannot act to maintain the destined timeline, so fans can look forward to seeing what kind of future awaits the team.”
That indicates that things will be different throughout the game when Final Fantasy VII Rebirth emerges. But to what extent? We’ll just have to wait and see.
Source: Square Enix