On Final Fantasy VII Remake and Kingdom Hearts III

Final Fantasy Versus XIII’s rocky development history has been one of the most publicized stories in the last decade of gaming, along with how it eventually became Final Fantasy XV. It was easy for the gaming audience as a whole to lose faith in director and character designer Tetsuya Nomura ever releasing a AAA game he helmed, though he still had plenty of fans.

But hope was partly renewed that he would break this curse with the announcement of Kingdom Hearts III, and entirely renewed when Final Fantasy VII Remake was announced at E3 last year. You can primarily pin that on the games being developed on middleware Unreal Engine 4; while the former was switched to this after Luminous Engine proved too problematic, the latter started on it. Thanks to that, it appeared both would be finished in good time, since a significant portion of Versus XIII’s issues were caused by the unstable Crystal Tools engine Square Enix used during the last console generation.

For anyone who remained skeptical of Nomura’s actions, it’s no surprise that current signs suggest both titles won’t be coming as quickly as thought, possibly because they were announced too early. Nomura was interviewed for this week’s Dengeki PlayStation about the development statuses for the two above titles, and prequel/remaster collection Kingdom Hearts 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue.

Nomura mentioned that FFVII Remake’s battle system hasn’t changed since its last showing at PlayStation Experience last December, whose trailer around that time showed their plans to discard the traditional Active Time Battle turn-based system for an action-based one. There are plans to properly demonstrate how its battles work the next time its shown, since many aspects of it were tough to ascertain from the short, framerate-challenged clips previously provided. While he’s also aware some fans of the turn-based system would prefer that to all-out action, he believes they’ll warm up to it once they see more of its features. That’s a bold claim, as he’ll have to go above and beyond to quell the criticisms of skeptics.

Those are fine plans, but when will be see this? Nomura, of course, didn’t explicitly say, but implied that it won’t be as soon as fans want. The game went into hiding recently because Square Enix has been focused on promoting titles releasing in the near future, particularly FFXV, and World of Final Fantasy to a lesser extent. But there was hope that its first episode would make the 20th Anniversary next year, and Nomura’s implications strongly suggest that won’t happen. We’ll see it in action sometime during 2017 at the very least, but its fanbase expected to hear more concrete info by now, given their previously-expressed desire to split it into multiple episodes to release it sooner.

It also doesn’t sound like it will resurface at this year’s PlayStation Experience, even though FFXV will have released by the time it starts. Though it’s still possible they could surprise us.

Meanwhile, Nomura confirmed what nearly everyone in-the-know was thinking regarding the Birth by Sleep 0.2 — A Fragmentary Passage (what a name, huh?) aspect of KH2.8: It will provide a taste of the gameplay features KHIII will offer in spades. Protagonist Aqua’s move set and equipment selection will be limited compared to Sora’s (and perhaps other playable characters) in the final game, but it will offer enough for fans to be satisfied with her comparatively miniature quest. We’ll get a chance to experience the changes the team has made to the battle system for this installment, which will likely be for the better considering Birth by Sleep’s welcome enhancements.

Since singer Hikaru Utada has returned to performing, she’s providing a remix of original Kingdom Hearts theme “Hikari.” A brand new theme from Utada is being saved for KHIII, though what the song will be hasn’t been decided yet. That’s not a good sign, in case you thought the game was releasing shortly after 2.8.

The fact that many Disney worlds and guest characters have yet to be revealed doesn’t help, along with how promotion for the main game took a backseat the moment 2.8 was unveiled at Tokyo Game Show last year. To date, the only new worlds that have been confirmed are Tangled and Big Hero 6, though mainstay locations like Twilight Town, the Mysterious Tower, and Olympus will also return. Worse, the last new world was announced in August last year. That’s not to say its development is in trouble, as the expertise the development team at Square Enix Osaka has obtained from the small KH2.8 sample will help streamline the remaining process. Nonetheless, its fanbase was hoping the development process would be faster, as it’s been over three years since it was announced.

KH2.8 will release for PS4 worldwide in January, following a delay from its previous December timeframe. Square Enix didn’t want to release it too close to FFXV after that was delayed to November 29th, though 2.8 will now give a bunch of other Japanese games releasing in January a hard time.

Nomura wasn’t going to suddenly change the way he approaches development direction, but it’s far too early to say these situations are mimicking Versus XIII’s. For now, let’s hope for the best, that neither title goes so far off the rails that other teams will need to take over.