The all new trailer for the Final Fantasy VII Remake left the internet on fire. HD cutscenes! Gameplay! Voice acting! It had it all!
Then came the announcement that the game will be split up into separate releases. Instead of one title, it will become a “multiple-part series.” To be fair, we don’t know what this means exactly. It could be episodic gaming. It may signal several spinoffs such as Final Fantasy VII Remake Versus and Final Fantasy VII Remake Agito and Final Fantasy VII Remake Type-0. Regardless, it takes a lot of the thunder out from the excitement of the trailer’s release.
This shouldn’t be much of a shock when you consider Square Enix’s recent track record. While critics and fans loved the 2013 reboot of Tomb Radier, Square was reportedly unhappy with the sales numbers. Despite selling a whopping 3.4 million copies in its first month, Square Enix wanted six million.
Six million for a franchise that, before the reboot, saw its better days vanish a long, long time ago.
It seems like for every step forward they make towards gamers, such as remaking Final Fantasy VII in HD or finally bringing Final Fantasy XV to light, they’re ready to take an immediate step back. FFVII HD was going to be one of the biggest impulse buys out there. Nostalgic gamers were eager to return to Midgar with improved visuals and (presumably) reworked combat. For some, it will still be an impulse purchase, but now it will have to become impulse purchases instead.
Square Enix claims to have a reason for this: the game is just too big for one release.
Bullocks.
This is a company that released the original on three CDs. Surely they could, you know, do the same and require people to install the entirety of the game to a hard drive, which happens anyway. It’s not like multi-CD installs are futuristic technology; if memory serves correctly, World of Warcraft had five CDs to install. For a second, though, I’ll play devil’s advocate. Maybe this game is too big for one “proper” release. Shouldn’t that be a sign that the company should focus on Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts 3 instead? How many resources are being siphoned from those projects just to answer the fan’s demand for this remake?
I shouldn’t be too surprised, though. You see, I am a wrestling fan. That means that I am continually disappointed week after week, month after month, because one man (Vince McMahon) demands that I like his preferred wrestler. In this case, it’s Roman Reigns or bust. Not Kevin Owens, Cesaro, Daniel Bryan, Dean Ambrose, Dolph Ziggler (yes that’s a real name for a wrestler), Bo Dallas (I still Bolieve), Brayy Watt, or countless others that are more deserving. This also means that the women’s division is still an absolute joke despite the female athletes in the developmental league (NXT) absolutely tearing the house down. It all means that I am going to have to accept what I’m “supposed” to like and deal with it.
Personally, I didn’t want a Final Fantasy VII remake. Others, however did. Others will stop at nothing to get it. Well, they’re finally getting what they’ve wanted all along. Square Enix will be printing money with this despite themselves, despite the fact that it’s being split up across several releases. People will still impulsively buy the game when it’s out, just like I’ll still be paying $9.99 a month for the WWE Network in spite of Vince McMahon.
