| Kasz216 said: Except... they totally aren't. Unless you want a really janky remake.
and since we're talking about the PS4 here and not the PS1, chances are you'd basically have to repogram the entire thing. There is a reason why you need emulaators for each generation afterall. Outside that... this explains it pretty well. Just replace PS3 with PS4 and realize costs have gone up even more. "Fans are acting like the game is halfway done because, hey - they already have the script, right? And the gameplay mechanics? Those are done. And they could use the models from one of those other games? Why don't they just do it? They just need to drop in some new graphics and - Boom! Done! The sad truth is that all of these resources are worthless. "Writing the script" is such a minuscule part of the work that needs to be done that it's hardly worth considering. We're talking a hundred hours of work versus hundreds of thousands of hours of work. (And besides, a script written for a text-based game will need some editing if it's going to be performed by voice actors.) The gameplay mechanics - assuming they wanted to keep the old mechanics and not fuss with them like they always do - also make up a very small portion of the total work. The people saying "they just need to drop in new graphics" are missing the point. That is the part of the game that takes a long time. This is like saying, "We have the script for James Cameron's Avatar, we just need to add some footage and the movie is done!" This isn't like the update for God of War, where they released the game with newer graphical assets. That was updating a game that was already in 3D and ran on last-gen hardware. FFVIIwas a top-down view game with a lot of 2D assets and it was released two hardware generations ago. There are simply no resources from that game that could be adapted for today. You'd need to start over. Sure, they have the 3D models for a couple of the central characters that could be imported from one of the more recent spinoff titles. But even those aren't going to be PS3-level quality. And why do a re-make and then cut corners on the central characters by using models designed for the PSP? That would be crazy. In any case, you need to fill a world, here. This isn't like the old days where you could paint people onto the background and make it look like the place is inhabited. Now you need everyone in 3D. From Kalm to Cosmo Canyon. From Costa del Sol to the Golden Saucer. From Junon to Rocket Town. Not to mention everything in Midgar. This game was designed for a different system with different limitations. When they designed Midgar they weren't thinking about the lack of occlusion you'd have if the city were in 3D and viewed at street level."
It goes on from there... and adds a ton of points why it's not feasable |
The music used in FF7 is downsampled from the original score, there are multiple versions of each song that have been produced over the years from arrange versions to full orchestral performances officially done.
The models created for the various PS3 games and the more recent final fantasy online are first produced in extremely high poly versions and reduced down to suit the engine performance over time, Square retain the original high poly models for marketing and promotional uses and for future projects, additionally only a small portion of modeled characters and "extras" are used with many others being shelved for later use, Square have modeled midgar multiple times over the years including expansive portions of the game world in extremely high polycount for the CGI movies, along with many of the characters.
I am not saying it is a simple walk in the park to create a remake of a game 3 generations old, I am however saying its a lot easier than you and other people might think, than making it from scratch, and would take a significantly less amount of money than your average Square game takes in development these days.
The fileservers are square enix's Shibuya headquarters have VAST libraries of high poly models and character designs, many of which never used.
If they were going for the same format (3d characters on 2d backgrounds) to stick with the original style then the development cost would be even lower, however if they decided to remodel the entire game world in 3d, they could very well do it providing they could all agree on a solid format that would do the original justice, while including enough to make even the most faithful of FF7 fans find it new.
If youre going to sit there and try to convince me of how hard it is to do, youre wasting your breath, ive spent long enough in japanese development studios, and enough time in the square enix hq (and prior to the merger, the square hq) to know and appreciate that their development archives are expansive enough to take a very large chunk of development time and cost out of producing a remake.
