Should More Classic Final Fantasy Games Be Remade? The Arguments For & Against

It’s now been almost two months since Square Enix unleashed Final Fantasy VII Remake upon the world after more than half a decade of buildup.

It has seemingly been a resounding success, as the game has quickly become the fastest-selling in the franchise’s history, and critical reception has been almost universally positive. Criticisms about pacing, fetch quests, corridors and changes to the story the original have attracted derision from certain aspects of the fanbase in small doses, however.

It remains to be seen how many episodes that the Remake is going to subsequently consist of given that the first only covered around 10% of the original game, or what the timeline for their release is going to be. You’d have to imagine they’ll quickly become the company’s top priority, given how the appetites of casual players and diehard fans alike have been whetted.

Though there is also the small matter of both crafting Final Fantasy XVI (and beyond) and maintaining the player base within Final Fantasy XIV.

Whatever their decisions going forward, Square-Enix will certainly be buoyed by the fact that there is still a huge potential market for their back catalogue if the immediate success of VII Remake is anything to go by. They certainly ‘could’ now create a huge revenue stream for themselves by remaking other games, but ‘should’ they do this?

Let’s assess the case.

Final Fantasies I through VI were developed and released over the space of just seven years between 1987 and 1994, equating to almost one huge game per year for the NES and SNES consoles. There was then a three year wait for the original release of Final Fantasy VII on the PlayStation in 1997, but VIII, IX and X all followed within the next four years.

Since the release of X in 2001, however, there have been just three non-online main series titles developed in nineteen years. There was a six-year gap between X and XII, a three-year gap between XII and XIII and then another six-year gap between XIII and XV, which is now almost four years old with no news of any developments pertaining to XVI on the horizon. This is quite worrying.

For whatever reason, Square-Enix’s development speed has slowed to a crawl and in the cases of XV and VII Remake, the actual releases of the game came many years after they were announced and showcased for the first time. The size and scope of modern games necessitates longer development times than previous generations, but Square-Enix’s are notoriously amongst the most unhurried in the industry.

Nobody wants a rushed and poor-quality Final Fantasy game, but given the emphasis placed on spin-offs and mobile titles since the Enix merger, adding more remakes to Square Enix’s slate could prolong that the wait for XVI and other titles beyond what fans will accept.