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Cloud and company are coming back…multiple times?!?

Developer Square Enix has made it clear that its upcoming Final Fantasy VII remake is indeed a remake, and not just the old game with a fresh coat of high-polygon-count graphics and new CG cutscenes. After all, there’s already a direct port of the classic game available for the PlayStation 4, and if the Final Fantasy VII remake is going to have anywhere near the phenomenal commercial success of the original version, its play mechanics need a considerable amount of modernizing.

So while the story, characters, and setting will be largely the same in the remake, when it comes to the game’s navigation and combat engines, it’s out with the old and in with the new, as shown in Square Enix’s newest trailer for the Final Fantasy VII remake.

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The short video recreates the original game’s opening sequence, with protagonist Cloud accompanying members of the Avalanche resistance group, including leader Barret, on a raid of a shadowy Shinra Electric Power Company facility. In contrast to the original version’s navigation scenes, in which a super-deformed version of Cloud moved across pre-rendered backdrops, the remake adopts the behind-the-back perspective that’s become the standard for modern action games, and the environments are now all extremely detailed polygon constructions.

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An even more startling change, though, is the new combat engine.

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Like most Final Fantasy games of the 8 to 32-bit eras, the original Final Fantasy VII employed a semi-real-time combat system. Still, for experienced players who were accustomed to navigating its menus, battles felt close to a turn-based affair, with all combatants standing in close proximity and patiently waiting to be given the chance to attack. The Final Fantasy VII remake, though, looks to be much more dynamic.

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Producer Yoshinori Kitase, who served as director on the original Final Fantasy VII, has said that while the remake’s combat is not completely action-based, it will incorporate more real-time elements than the game’s original version did.

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Still, the trailer shows a command selection menu in the bottom left corner, which would suggest that fights in the remake are closer to the style of the upcoming Final Fantasy XV than, say, the action RPG spinoff Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. The shift to more real-time battles doesn’t mean that Cloud is fighting solo, either, or that the player is locked into controlling only the spikey-haired swordsman. One sequence in the trailer shows Barret getting in on the action, with his own status bar in the lower right corner and the camera locked on the gun-armed character while Cloud slashes away in the background.

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Speaking of Barret, he’s got sort of a Blade thing going on with his new sunglasses and tighter-cropped hairdo.

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Cloud, meanwhile, has finer facial features and a much slenderer build than his original design, both likely to accommodate evolving tastes in leading men in Japanese video games and anime.

▼ Don’t skip tricep day, Cloud.

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He’s as aloof and dismissive as he ever was, though.

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Aside from a couple of low-level Avalanche members, Cloud and Barret are the only named characters to show up in the trailer, meaning fans of Tifa, Aeris, and the game’s other major stars are going to have to wait a bit longer to see them in all their graphic-updated glory. We’re sure they’ll all be there when the Final Fantasy VII remake is released.

Or, at least we were sure they’d be there, until Square Enix released the following statement:

“Final Fantasy VII Remake will be told across a multi-part series, with each entry providing its own unique experience.”

Taking coyness to an extreme, the company has yet to provide any more details, so it’s unclear as to whether these multiple parts will take the form of prequels or sequels that expand upon the events of Final Fantasy VII, or if the company is planning to slice the familiar Final Fantasy VII narrative up into multiple games that will have to be purchased separately to experience the complete story.

Source: Square Enix via Anime News Network, YouTube/PlayStation
Images: YouTube/Square Enix NA