Cognition Dissemination: How About Those Final Fantasy V and VI Remakes?

Square Enix will finally release the long-anticipated Final Fantasy VII Remake for PlayStation 4 worldwide this Friday. It feels wrong to use the words “finally” and “long-anticipated” to refer to this project, and not because of the franchise name. The development period between the announcement and release was shorter than it was for the supreme mess that was Final Fantasy XV’s (previously Final Fantasy Versus XIII), which was anticipated for over decade.

But remember that this remake has been anticipated since the Final Fantasy VII PS3 tech demo was shown at E3 2005 — damn near 15 years ago. Vocal Final Fantasy fans haven’t given up on it since, and they’re finally getting their wish. Specifically the first part of it, despite its name.

Yet, there’s a big outstanding question here: Where are the Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI remakes? In their pursuit of the immediately marketable and soon-to-be immensely profitable FFVII Remake, Square Enix skipped over providing 21st century upgrades for the two preceding titles. This move was understandable considering the top itinerary for a company is always to remain profitable, but this was still peculiar on principle. They’re underestimating the potential profitability these remakes could provide.

Square Enix has no problem green lighting mid-tier games these days. In fact, they’re more open to doing so now compared to even a decade ago. This was one of the first key differences between former Square Enix Japan CEO Yoichi Wada and current CEO Yosuke Matsuda, after the latter realized the company was hasty in their exclusive pursuits of AAA and mobile titles. Matsuda discovered this after the worldwide success of the first Bravely Default title on 3DS, and other successes like NieR: Automata and Octopath Traveler have shown how this strategy has continued to be worthwhile. More FF remakes with those budgets would be at least just as successful.

They now have multiple battle systems to choose from. When I first wrote a similar (but not identical, thanks) editorial to this one in 2015 shortly after FFVII Remake was announced, I figured they’d reuse the Active Time Battle for the remakes with a few modifications. This would make them closer to the remakes of Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy IV in terms of style. But I quite enjoyed FFVII Remake’s action-based ATB system from the little I played in the demo, and I wouldn’t mind if they implemented a similar one for new interpretations on FFV and FFVI.

The real-time system might be more palatable to wider audiences these days than turn-based battles, which could be enough to get them green lit. There’s a chance Square Enix didn’t pursue them due to the underwhelming performance of FFIV’s remake on DS, which reportedly sold nowhere near FFIII. This happened because the FFIII remake released early in the DS’ life, and was a reimagining of a title never officially released outside Japan, which made for an at-least intriguing product. The FFIV remake released after the system had been out for a while, when some players drifted to other platforms or tired of the 3D visual style of JRPGs on DS, or both.

The budget and style of the FFV and FFVI remakes I’m suggesting here would be closer to the upcoming Trials of Mana, a reimagining made with the intention of keeping the original title’s spirit. I’m well aware that it’s blasphemous to even suggest that older FF games be remade with action-based systems, but I’m willing to take figurative (not literal, geez) bullets to get them put into development here.

Yes, FFVII Remake is releasing this week, but it’s not too late for Square Enix to take on these remakes. Again, this will only be the first part of several for the new FFVII interpretation, which leaves the company plenty of time to release FFV and FFVI remakes in between. They don’t have to be handled internally either, similar to the FF remakes before FFVII — though even that was planned to be handled externally at one point. These remakes would hopefully be less likely to fall apart behind the scenes.

When this topic manifested before, FFVII director and character designer Tetsuya Nomura voiced support for the remakes happening. Recently, producer and former director Yoshinori Kitase told Game Reactor that it would be “quite interesting” to do an FFV remake someday. He mentioned a desire to take a more “realistic” approach unprompted when he was asked the question, which perhaps hints at how he’d like to take the same approach as the FFVII Remake here. This is sacrilegious to some FF fans, but keep in mind that he said it, not me, in this case.

I have my fingers crossed (again, figuratively) that these will happen in time, but I wouldn’t do anything as dumb as betting money on it. Maybe I’d bet a Twitter or Discord avatar. If they don’t come, then it shouldn’t be unreasonable to ask for good ports of FFV and FFVI instead. A port of the GBA version of FFV would suffice, while a version that combined the SNES version’s visuals with the GBA version’s translation of FFVI would be welcome. Note that the mobile versions and their ports to Steam do not count as “good ports,” because they’re bad.

Depending on just how well FFVII Remake does, and signs suggest it will be a big seller given all the people staying at home right now, it will increase the chance of these remakes being green lit. Hopefully they don’t keep us waiting.