It’s very easy to look at the gaming space right now and state that there are “numerous remasters and remakes everywhere” and that they “are all the same money grab kind of thing,” and you would be right on that in some respects. There are plenty of people in the gaming space who look at that kind of thing and feel that they should do it to “bank on nostalgia,” and to see how much money they can get off fans from it. However, there are exceptions to that rule, and one of them is the upcoming Final Fantasy The Ivalice Chronicles title by Square Enix.
The reason this one is different isn’t just because of its status as an “all-time classic title” that would go on to inspire the beloved mainline RPG series for years to come, but as noted in the PlayStation Blog, the team behind the game has members who were there for the OG version all those years ago. That includes Director Kazutoyo Maehiro, who noted in the piece:
“It was Final Fantasy Tactics that inspired me to dedicate my life to becoming a game designer. Even now it serves as an emotional underpinning for me, so it’s very dear to my heart.”
He even admitted to going back to the original and starting it from scratch to experience it again, and the results made him quite happy:
“I strongly felt that I wanted to revive this amazing game so that new players of the current generation could experience it. That was what began the development of this game.”
Interestingly, the team had an “out” to try and do things a bit easier, as they could’ve used an emulator to allow the “classic form” to be played in the main game. Instead, the team chose to just rebuild it outright so that they could do more with it.
One such thing was that Final Fantasy The Ivalice Chronicles will feature far more dialogue than the original game, and that’s for a basic reason:
“In the original game certain characters rarely spoke once they were recruited, but here we added conversations that play during battles. When sending them into specific battles, characters like Agrias, Cid, and Mustadio speak considerably more. Some of these dialogues aren’t just exchanges between characters, but also complement the narrative, or touch on the heart of the story, such as why war veteran Marquis Elmdore chose the path he did.”
The team also adjusted the dialogue from the original game so that when they brought in the voice actors for the remaster/remake, the dialogue would feel more “natural.” There are other “advances” and updates that the team brought to the entry, so be sure to read the full blog to find out more!
