Ok, I was disappointed at first when I heard the news, but after thinking about it, I believe that good things can come out from this decision.

First off, Final Fantasy VII is a huge, huge game and developing a remake of it would take a very long period of time, considering that they are rebuilding it from the ground up, graphics, full 3D environments, combat, voice acting, side quest and so on. Moreover, they want to change and add some parts to it, so they have to do even more work. Releasing it in a "standard" way could mean waiting years and years and Square might not see the investment worth it along the road. 

By releasing it in a episodic way I think Square can truly achieve their (and our) vision of the game, and they can guarantee a high quality release in a relatively short amount of time. Also they can receive important feedback with every episode and they can reinvest the money earned to make the game even better. Of course pricing is the key here and I hope they won't fuck up in this regard.

I know that it sounds a greedy and anti-consumer choice, but I believe that Square is dealing with a lot of pressure right now and, while they care about fans (they wouldn't do this remake otherwise), they also care about their investment, because I bet this is going to cost them a lot of money.

I want to close with a prediction: from what they said about making Midgar much bigger and explorable, I'm pretty sure that the first episode will be only about Midgar, maybe until Kalm Town and Cloud's flashback. I bet that this first episode will come out by this time next year.

It's good because I can give SE even more money for that juicy Soul Reaver remake.

Don't say that, you are going to make me sad :(

They're gonna make the Soul Reaver remake episodic so we can give even more money for the Soul Reaver 2 remake :D

So you think they are actually going to make full fledged games for each episode at 60 dollars/euro... Could happen of course but I think it would be a very risky move, you can make every "episode" as big as you want and well worth 60 dollars, but it will always going to feel like a section of a game. The situation with XIII trilogy is different because after finishing the XIII no one expected more of it. After that they decided to continue with the saga. In the end XIII, XIII-2 and Lightning Returns are three different games while FFVII Remake is only one. 

When the game is finished and they'll release the complete edition they can't expect people to spend 180, 240 dollars for a game, even if it's the biggest game ever developed.

The game was huge for its time, and released on 3 discs. Keeping up with the times, I guess the same goes for the remake. The difference being, we may have to wait for the next part which won't be fun. I wish they'd just release it all at once. I'd wait. I've waited 4+ years for Zelda U.

Is there any doubt?

I'm also for it. First of all, we get our hands on this game earlier and second, most FF7 fans are busy people with work today. We dont have time to play through the game at once...however, if it would be in parts..!

I think Square dropped to ball on calling it "Episodic", because that cues the thought that the game will be released in short bursts.

However, they already said that each part will be absolutely massive. More content than the original, fleshed out in a more involved battle system with real cutscenes and voice acting. A better term would be to say it is releasing in chapters, or parts. Think more like .hack and how it is released in multiple parts using the same engines in the same story.

In short, what they're doing is making FFVII:R a series. Think of it like each disc being is own game.

As long as there is an eventual complete series, I won't be complaining O: