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

With worldwide sales of more than 13 million units, the original Final Fantasy VII is by far the most successful game in the franchise. For many, it was their first experience of the series, releasing on the PlayStation at the height of the system’s ascendancy. As a result of this, it is often regarded to be the best game in the series. That’s certainly debateable – many of its flaws are often overlooked by the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia, but what cannot be questioned is that the widespread exposure and love for the game is what inspired (and has largely fuelled the success of) the Remake.

After VII, the most successful games in the series are XIV (10.9 million lifetime players), X (10.5 million units), VIII (9.65 million units) and XV (8.9 million units). XIV is still a live MMO game and XV is only four years old, whilst there aren’t many calls for a remake of X given that the HD remaster of the original 2014 game holds up quite well.

That leaves VIII, which can probably attribute some of its success to piggybacking on the release of VII. There is certainly a case for remaking VI and IX, which sold between 5 and 6 million copies each despite releasing at the end of their console’s life cycles, but its difficult to say whether Square-Enix would risk investing in something that has a much lower ceiling than their biggest property.