You probably figured this out already, but just in case: That bombshell teaser for Square Enix's Final Fantasy VII remake? It's talking directly to us, not past us the way so many trailers do. Not about the game's plot or its beloved characters, but our reaction to the idea of the company tinkering with its 1997 PlayStation opus. That trailer isn't just eye candy for ravenous Final-Fantasy-philes, it's basically an entreaty.
"The reunion at hand may bring joy. It may bring fear," intones the narrator as the camera slides suavely through a gobsmacking rendition of Midgar, Sector 7, the original game's dystopian starter district. "But let us embrace whatever it brings."
Whatever it brings? Okay maybe, Square Enix. Maybe. You're being kind of forward there, though granted, you've probably earned enough karma to cover all four corners of the Earth by simply confirming a remake's on the books.
But here's the thing. As I was watching the trailer, between pinching myself and noticing subtle details inspired by---but, importantly, not in---the original game, the thought occurred to me: What if the remake went boldly off-road somehow, story-wise, instead of giving us a prettier regurgitation of an experience so pored over and ingrained in gaming's collective unconscious that it still routinely places first on annual most-wanted remake lists?
Shoot the moon with me. What if this upcoming version of Final Fantasy VII were more than just a "mature" rethink of the original, shorn of the tin-eared dialogue, maudlin melodrama and marathon cut scenes? What if iconic events we've been living with for nearly two decades weren't immutable?
I know what you're thinking: "Hands off my high-definition stroll down memory lane!" I get it. I'm questioning an experience sacrosanct to millions. The heart wants what it wants, and lord knows I won't apologize for occasionally queueing up Baltimora's "Tarzan Boy" when I'm reminiscing about boom boxes, grade school and MTV.
I'm just suggesting that you (and maybe director Tetsuya Nomura, and returning writer Kazushige Nojima, if it's not too late) consider an alternative scenario, one where this Final Fantasy VII remake becomes more than just a snazzier mimic of its archetype.
What if you could upend one or more of the game's hallowed story vectors? (Hey, The Witcher games do it!) Entertain a few "what if" scenarios? How much more gripping would the game be if some of its most memorable (and hence anticlimactically predictable) moments weren't carved in stone? Is it asking too much from an assured blockbuster that'll pay dividends on whatever crazy figure it costs to make?
I'm assuming stuff like the battle engine and item customization (materia) systems are going under the knife, that loot placement's headed for the lotto ball tumbler, that the original game's innumerable cutscenes, no longer necessary to fire our imaginations as feats of full-motion derring-do, are due for cutbacks, or at least less jarring placement.
I'm also assuming, given how much we're seeing in this trailer that we've never seen before, that some of the allure's going to lie in seeing all the crazy world-building chrome the development team's going to layer in, and that 1997's creaky NTSC video standard would have rendered inscrutable.
But I'm not sure how motivated I am to climb into a gun and roleplay a bullet that, by the time Final Fantasy VII arrives circa its 20th anniversary, someone will have fired decades ago. Put that gun to my head, and I'd probably plead my case for at least one sequence rethink. You know the one I'm talking about.
So my question to Square Enix is this: Is it wrongheaded to request that part of this remake's raison d'être lie in allowing that one momentous (and monstrous) inevitability to somehow play differently? Could the game's most resonant trick be not its obviously stunning visual recast or ostensible gameplay overhaul, but the way you approach, experience, then proceed past one of its most indelible moments?
