New quotes from Final Fantasy VII Remake producer Yoshinori Kitase and co-director Tetsuya Nomura have shed some welcome light on what's coming up in the second part of the remake project.
The first instalment of Square Enix's reinvention of the 1997 JRPG Final fantasy VII came out on April 10, to a mostly positive reception - you can read or watch our own, 7/10-scored review of the game (that number means we think it's Very Good, BTW). Since then, a lot of people have been asking, for starters, when's the second part out. And, when it comes to those players who've finished the game: WTF is going on here, then?
And no, we're not going to say anything here about the ending to Final Fantasy VII Remake - at least not in specifics. Let's just say, in order for what follows below to make any sense, that it goes... places. The Cloud-led crew that left Midgar in the original game? They're still leaving Midgar, alright. It's just that they're doing so with a lot more question marks raised concerning where they're heading, and what's been changed in the backstory to Final Fantasy VII that you thought you knew. Which is to say: you might want to revisit Crisis Core sometime, soon.
Advert
Okay, back on track. A new book released in Japanese by Square Enix and containing "secret information that you may miss or may not understand just by playing normally", Final Fantasy VII Remake Ultimania, has been translated, piece by piece (thanks VG247, WCCF Tech, and a whole bunch of tweets I saw this morning), by fans eager to know more about the making of Remake, and also what's coming next. And Kitase and Nomura talk about precisely these things, in said book.
As translated by Twitter user @aitaikimochi, Nomura says that the speed at which a second chapter of Remake arrives (which we know is well underway, development wise) "depends on which team [within Square Enix] handles it". He adds: "If we divide the work in large parts, it'll take longer. If we separate the work in smaller parts, it'll be a shorter amount of time. I hope to have the next part out ASAP."
Advert
ASAP, of course, could mean next year, 2022, or beyond that. I'm of the mind to think it'll come sometime between late 2021 and the summer of 2022, while this generation of consoles - Remake is exclusive to PS4 for now, and part two of it will surely release for the now-seven-year-old console (even if subsequent parts don't) - remains popular enough, and the next-gen PlayStation 5 is a system people are still adopting. That's what my waters are saying, anyway - though I'm overdue a cuppa, so, who knows.
As for the story, a comment from Kitase has made its way to Reddit, as follows: "There is no way to make it (Remake) completely different from the original version in the future. Please think that FF7 remains FF7, even in the Remake version."
Kitase also said: "We have a general idea of how the story will play out, but we haven't decided exactly [how many parts it'll release in], nor can we confirm anything. There's speculation that it will be three parts, but we're just doing things one step at a time."
Advert
Which pours some water on speculation that Final Fantasy VII Remake could deviate wildly from the plot of the 1997 game, doesn't it? Or perhaps Kitase isn't being quite as honest here as he might be? I'm loath to spoil anything, but there's certain wording at the end of Remake that really does imply that changes are ahead. But again, I've no unique inside line on this, and am just another fan of the game spitballing about what could be ahead of us.
Certainly, another comment from Nomura does tug at the possibility of significant differences between what's next for Remake, and what we saw play out in 1997's game. As translated by @aitaikimochi, he says:
"We wanted to have the last boss fight take place at the highway in Midgar, which arises questions that I cannot answer. There is a character who's alive, which leads to a great mystery."
Advert
And I have to leave it there, because to say anything more about who that character is or might be really is spoiler territory. But the main takeaways from these translated excerpts: the story you know and love from 1997's Final Fantasy VII is, apparently, intact in Remake; and the second part of Remake, which may be the middle release of a trilogy, will be in your hands sooner rather than later, hopefully. Which is good news, I think?
Featured Image Credit: Square EnixTopics: Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Final Fantasy 7, Square Enix, Final Fantasy