There isn’t a way to discuss the PS1, JRPGs, or impactful games in general, without talking about Final Fantasy VII. For coming up on 30 years, Final Fantasy VII has been regarded as one of the most influential games of all time. It brought 3D JRPGs into the mainstream, even though it launched on a first generation console. If I could make a sports comparison, I would say that people talk about Final Fantasy VII like Michael Jordan.
Six years and two parts of the trilogy released, we have the release date for the last chapter of the Final Fantasy VII Remake project. The announcement of the April 8th release has sparked conversation about if we will ever get another series of games like this ever again. The comparisons to Star Wars and Lord of The Rings are clear as day. Beloved works being split up into distinct experiences that tell one expansive story. To answer this question, we have to look back at why these franchises have split releases like this.
In the case of Lord of The Rings, there was just so much content in each book. Making one movie per book made more sense than to create a single movie all at once that would have cost a lot more money than if they had released one after another. Star Wars doesn’t have this problem, as there wasn’t any source material to pull from. They were essentially making it up as they went, which added to the excitement of a new release. Nobody knew what would happen to the beloved characters, so fans just had to tune in to see what came next. For FF7, things were a bit different.
The FF7 PlayStation 3 Technical Demo from 2011 was the moment where talk of a remake first began. Fans begged Square Enix for years, until 2015, their prayers were finally answered, and FF7 Remake was announced. Even though it took 5 years for the first part of this remake trilogy to be released, when you think about it, this long development time worked in the favor of the rest of this trilogy, as the technology at the time just could not handle what would eventually be implemented into the future parts. A compromised vision due to technical restraints would have disappointed fans who’ve waited for so long for this project to come to fruition.
I am personally very excited for the finale of this story. There hasn't been anything in gaming like the FF7 Remake Project in a long time (if ever).
