Final Fantasy VII, The Real Remake
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I’ve stumbled across something very interesting I’d like to share here briefly. For those unfamiliar, Final Fantasy VII is a role-playing game (rpg) originally released for Sony Playstation (PSX) around 1997 or so. It went on to become the best selling game of all time. The Final Fantasy series has been known for its epic storylines, typically involving someone arising from nothing and growing in understanding of the more subtle layers of existence to become a central figure in reshaping the destiny of the world. Often times, those more subtle layers involve such eye candy as summoning eldritch dragons…or the occasional ostrich-looking creature. “Wark!”
The trouble is, time has passed since the release of Final Fantasy VII. 12 years to be precise. While the creators of the series have gone on to make great games since then, they’ve also made a few that received less than favorable reviews. The fan-based demand for a revamp of the game for the modern generation of consoles has been huge. Ever since the release of Playstation 2 (PS2) nearly a decade ago. At present, such cries have fallen on deaf ears. Why update the best selling game of all time for a new generation? Surely, no good can come of this. Its own sales history alone suggests thus. Instead, let us release side stories based on the game. Tricksey.
Playstation 3 has since been released. As was a tech demo of PS3′s capabilities. This demo? A revamp of the original opening scene from Final Fantasy VII. Just to twist the knife a little further. Or perhaps to gauge the response?
Well, if you’re tired of waiting, do I have news for you…
So here’s the deal. A wide range of people have come together for the purpose of updating the PC version of Final Fantasy VII to more modern standards. At first, the group took character models from Kingdom Hearts 2 and such games featuring Final Fantasy VII characters and inserted them into the game. Turns out, Square didn’t care for that and sent them a cease and desist letter. However, it seems that it is okay for them to create character models from scratch.
Thus, a talented group of 3D modelers, and even audio engineers rebuilding the music to replace the original midi source files, have come together. They’ve been working on this for years, rebuilding all the 200+ characters from scratch. So far, they’re about 70% complete on rebuilding all the playable and non-playable characters, as well as updates to the music quality, screen resolution and so forth. They have released several mods along the way to convert the old game we all know and love into this work of beauty:
If you own the PC version of Final Fantasy VII from way back when and want to know how to update it to look like the above, be sure to check out the <a href=”http://wiki.qhimm.com/FF7/Technical/Customising”>QhimmWiki</a> for more information.
Enjoy!
2 Comments on this post
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Bigg D said:
I recon this is fake. Why is does the picture of Barret in the menu show him wearing a wight vest but in the game it’s green? it probably a shot of him taken from advent children.
April 11th, 2009 at 1:17 am -
Underwood said:
It’s the real deal. A bunch of gamers with some programming knowledge made a series of mods for it, one of which changes the default menu screen character images with character images clipped from Advent Children. The most prominent mod is of course the hi-resolution rebuilds they did of all the characters. They couldn’t just take the character models from the ending scene, or from Kingdom Hearts and so on — they apparently tried that at one point, until Square came down on them for it — so they rebuilt hi-resolution models from scratch, and not only of the main characters, but they’re working on the character models for every npc in the game as well. It’s a pretty epic undertaking. One guy even remastered the audio, another figured out how to take the OST and insert it into the game instead for high quality orchestral renditions of the music from the game.
Thanks for checking out the post and commenting. If you bought the PC version, you should definitely give some of the mods a try.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:35 am
