Dear Square Enix, Please Don't Change The Combat In The Final Fantasy 7 Remake

I am very excited about the Final Fantasy 7 remake that was announced at this year's E3. FF7 is still one of my all-time favorite games, and of all the titles in the Final Fantasy series, I feel it is the one most in need of a remake. For years now, people have debated the merits of such an undertaking, but I tend to look at it this way: Final Fantasy 7 is the one game in the series that suffered the most from its place in time and a loving remake will go a long way toward correcting that.

Side-by-side comparison of the PSone and PC versions.

What do I mean by that? Well, Final Fantasy 1-6 had sprite based graphics that, I feel, still hold up today. The pixelated art style of the 8- and 16-bit console entries gave the early games in the series a classic and unifying look that tied them all together and, let's face it, great pixel art never truly goes out of style. Final Fantasy 7, however, was released relatively early in the Playstation's life cycle and was the first game in the series to feature polygonal graphics. Though it looked pretty great when it was released in 1997, I think the general consensus is that FF7 really doesn't look so hot today. And it makes sense. It always takes time for developers to get a handle on newer console hardware capabilities, and since the original Playstation represented an evolutionary step away from sprite based graphics, it's not hard to understand why FF7 looks the way it does and why later Final Fantasy entries for the original Playstation look so much better. And besides, Final Fantasy 7 had a strong plot, fantastic music, a great cast of playable characters, and one of the most memorable final boss encounters in all of video games. It deserves a remake, and I'll listen to no more debate on the subject!

The real crux of this post, however, has to do with some recent comments that were made by Tetsuya Nomura, the director of the Final Fantasy 7 remake. In an interview with Official Playstation Magazine he talked about "dramatic changes" that he plans to make to the battle system. He is quoted as saying:

"And of course, that being said we want to clarify: We’re not going to be changing it into a shooter or something like that. We are going to be bringing dramatic changes, but we want to make sure it’s still recognizable."

This is a BAD idea and I do not trust the brains at SQUARE ENIX who think such a move will be good for Final Fantasy 7. Now look, I understand that, to some, turn-based RPG combat may seem played out. The thing is, IT'S NOT. There may be newer and "fresher" ways to handle combat in an RPG, but the classic turn-based style of FF7 is just that, classic. SQUARE ENIX has experimented with more contemporary ways of handling combat in its more recent Final Fantasy games and the results have been middling at best. Think of FF13 and how it obscures its battle scenes with an almost absurd amount of menus, numbers, and text, or Final Fantasy Crisis Core and how it gives the illusion of free movement during combat, only to have it be ultimately revealed as little more than cosmetic. I'm not calling either of those games BAD, mind you, I'm just pointing out the fact that SQUARE ENIX's attempts to tweak traditional turn-based RPG combat haven't done much to improve the genre. With this in mind, I believe that any attempts to "improve" the brilliant FF7 by overhauling the battle system will likely serve to alienate longtime fans and will probably do little to intrigue new ones. You want to tweak it a little and add combo attacks or something? Okay...maybe...but the phrase "dramatic changes" has me worried.

I'll close it out this way: turn-based RPG combat IS NOT DEAD! The Pokémon series still has it, and it's one of the most enduringly popular RPG series in history. Even SQUARE ENIX's recent Bravely Default featured traditional RPG combat, and that game was a commercial and critical smash! Don't do it, SQUARE ENIX. No one wants this!