There is no way they can make a remake of FF7 so instead they are going to milk what's left of X.
FF7 is too hard to re-make not because of lack of graphics designers to heavily overhaul the visual level of the game, or to leave the story and side quests, possibly enhance the experience to give a lot more detail to the world the game is in.
This is what is currently impossible for S-E to do "right"
The list:
Combat mechanics in FF7 are completely unique. You can set up your party in sever ways, and in FF7 positioning makes a whole different meaning. Also equipping your characters with specific Materia allows them to enhance their abilities not only per say but actually makes things different.
For instance, a basic Materia you can find quite early in the game [Long Range] when equipped onto a ranged character like Barret, Vincent and Yuffie doesn't really make a difference at first glimpse, however when you put them in back row, their attack power is halved. But with [Long Range] Materia their attack power remains 100% while they retain the 50% defense bonus from back row.
It seems logical but the mechanics used in the game are tricky for modern coding. Reason being, they are unable to recreate the engine.
The same Materia works more wonders with melee characters like Cloud and Tifa for example. If they are placed in back row with [Long Range] Materia, they can attack front row of enemy party with 100% efficiency, however they are now unable to attack second/third rows the same way. They receive -55% damage penalty against second/third row, although without [Long Range] Materia they can't even attack those rows at all from Back row.
Same Materia has different effect on Ranged characters vs flying enemies and melee characters vs flying enemies. Ranged characters vs Flying with [Long Range] Materia deal 100% damage +elemental damage they may have in their weapons (flying are always weak to something), however melee characters deal 80% damage to front row on flying enemies (+ elemental) and only 45%! damage + elemental to second row enemies using [Long Range] Materia, and are unable to attack second row of flying enemies from back row.
And this is still just one materia, when there are many more problems with mechanics that include JUST materia.
As you can see, the likelihood of them fucking this game up is too high and they have what to be afraid of from fans.
Fans of the game will just rip them to shreds.
Another possible fuck up is [Mega All] Materia.
Simply put, the rule is similar to [Long Range] Materia, but a lot less fucky. Still, it would make a lot of problems with modern known engines and coding techniques.
[Mega All] Materia allows to use nearly EVERY command on ALL Allies/Enemies.
Exceptions are :
[Steal]
[Mug]
[Mime]
[Double Cut]
[Comet]
[Shield]
[Break]
[Freeze]
[Flare]
[W Item]
[Item]
[Enemy Skill]
[Summon]
Every other command is targeting ALL Allies/enemies.
This also applies to [Attack] command.
The Attack with [Mega All] Materia allows all ranged characters from Front Row to attack with 100% damage to every ground character in front and back row and every flying enemy in front row (+elemental).
In one turn. I loved this with Yuffie as she (as well as all other characters, including Caith Sith and Red XIII) gains a cool animation during the attack. Practically ALL characters are attacking in their own unique way using this command.
[Mega All] Materia however works quite differently from [All] Materia which can only be used with Magic Materia. But the basic rule of [All] Materia is working in [Mega All] Materia as well. Limited use for all commands to be ALL.
But unlike [All] Materia, which must be used with another materia to actually work (in example [All]+[Cure] allows a limited use of cure on all standing allies (usually the limit at max is x5 times), [Mega All] Materia only needs to be in the weapon/armor slot, doesn't even need to be connected, but it can still be used only x5 times as well at max level.
It seems easy but the mechanics are not the same and are being used separately. Yes, you read that right, a whole separate set of mechanics for nearly the same thing. And it actually worked like a charm too. Every mechanic in the game worked without fail. Can you say the same with modern games that use more "advanced" engines ?
Absolutely no. And yes, I am making a mock at Bethesda with this
Games like FFVII are much too hard to re-make/re-master because they are nearly perfect and their only imperfection was being not prepared for more modern rigs and technology. Games like FFVII and many more should be marked as 7 Gaming Wonders of all time.
So as you can see it's much easier to re-make something that uses a lot less work to begin with. As far as combat mechanics go, FFX is pretty damn easy and simple. There are no advanced tactics or strategies, you don't need to spend long hours preparing for a side boss like
Ruby Weapon that takes time and smart tactics to actually do it right.
If ANY other FF game will have a boss that wipe you out as easy as Ruby does when you are unaware and unprepared, i'll bow my head to it.
FFX-2 Via Infinito is near that level but not as awesome because only ONE enemy in Via Infinito is a deadly mean son of a bitch, and that is only because his attacks are overpowered, all thanks to Damage/hp breaks.
Ever since that was allowed in FF games their difficulty dropped considerably (Started from FF8)
Personally I can't phatom why FFX and not for example a remastering of FF9 which had a lot better story to tell and much more interesting characters unique to Final Fantasy Universum, while FFX+ are all proper looking humans, in most cases, which is IMHO boring.
Damn I miss Vivi, think I'll play that after beating FFVII again
