Square Enix’s Final Fantasy series continues to thrive to this very day, offering a ton of mainline titles, spin-offs and even remakes of beloved classic titles. Final Fantasy 7 in particular, can be credited as being one of the most influential titles to have been ever released, and has been a major part of gaming history – and even some childhoods.
Naturally, (given its age) a remake was always in the cards, with Square Enix only recently releasing the second installment of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy – Rebirth, for PCs. However, the team had to take a few more things into consideration during the remake, the most important of which would likely be tailoring it for the global audience.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth were designed with global audiences in mind
Speaking to Sony Interactive Entertainment in a recent interview, Naoki Hamaguchi, the director behind Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, mentioned the challenges the team faced during the game’s long development – and of the changes they had to make for the global audience.
For the uninitiated, Final Fantasy 7 Remake is being developed as a trilogy – with 3 distinct entries to complete the overall package. Remake and Rebirth refer to the first 2 parts, with a third and final unnamed entry being expected to be released sometime later.
The Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy also features a lot more changes from the original PlayStation 1 version of the game, and as such a lot of its exposition and dialogue was changed in the process, to both fit the newer timeline as well as ‘modernize’ it to an extent.
We now create with a global audience in mind from the very start. In that sense, we are in a completely different era.
From its initial launch back in 1997, a lot has changed in the gaming industry, and Final Fantasy 7 has had to implement these in its current build. The development of the game, for example, was centered around the global market in mind this time around – unlike the Japan-first nature of the original Final Fantasy 7.
As such, a lot of errors and mistranslations (along with unintended changes) made their way to the global version of Final Fantasy 7 for the PS1. The team had to keep this in mind while developing the remake trilogy – and as such had to tailor ‘ethical reviews’ per region as a result.
From the story to every little detail in the game’s presentation, we conduct thorough ethical reviews tailored to different regions
In that sense, one could say that Final Fantasy is in an entirely different era right now – which is quite indicative of its overall presentation, and change towards more action-focused, real-time combat for its mainline entries.
Final Fantasy 7 remake is still a Japanese first game though
Naoki Hamaguchi did however, also reiterate that they are a ‘Japanese first’ developer regardless. All of their games are developed for the Japanese audience in mind first, and followed by careful translations for the rest of the world.
Admittedly, the process can involve a fair bit of balancing at times though – given how some players respect and feel the need to play the game in its original, Japanese context.
It has been described as a major challenge, and making the correct translations without impacting the tone of the original, Japanese version is something Square Enix aims to keep doing.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
