It's been revealed that the highly anticipated Final Fantasy VII remake will be released as a "multi part series" with each offering a "unique experience"

This may come as a blow to fans if this means the whole story of VII won't be available immediately. The announcement has yet to be properly clarifled.
Source

 

[Bubsy Bobcat]

Never played FF7 *Grabs shield*, but goddamn is this such a stupid idea.

 

[TecXero]

Never played FF7 *Grabs shield*, but goddamn is this such a stupid idea.

It's okay. If this remake doesn't turn out well, then I'd recommend checking out the original if you can stomach turn based combat, terrible early PS1 era 3D graphics, and angst. It was definitely a lot of fun at the time.

 

[T-hug]

If they announce microtransactions too I'm out. I didn't buy the PS4 re-release of FFVII yet as I've played it so many times already but it's starting to look like the best option now.


About the details of splitting the game into episodes, please tell us more.

Kitase: From the beginning, we have considered it impossible to remake FF7 into one single game. Althought it's impossible to tell you the details about the splitting at the moment, please wait for our further announcement.

Nomura: If we tried to stuff the whole game into one release, some part of the game would have to appear as digests. We'd have to remove some contents from the game, and it would be difficult to add more to the game. Considering that a full remake of the original game must be achived, we have decided to split the game into episodes.

Kitase: Taking the No.8 street shown in the video this time, even just this is already highly dense. If we are to remake the content of the original version at that quality, it would have been impossible to do with a single release.

Splitting the original version into episode with nothing dropped, as well as adding complements, and remaking the game the game in its full volume is what we are thinking.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1152062

 

[TecXero]

If they announce microtransactions too I'm so out. I didn't buy the PS4 re-release of FFVII yet as I've played it to many times already but it's starting to look like the best option now.


About the details of splitting the game into episodes, please tell us more.

Kitase: From the beginning, we have considered it impossible to remake FF7 into one single game. Althought it's impossible to tell you the details about the splitting at the moment, please wait for our further announcement.

Nomura: If we tried to stuff the whole game into one release, some part of the game would have to appear as digests. We'd have to remove some contents from the game, and it would be difficult to add more to the game. Considering that a full remake of the original game must be achived, we have decided to split the game into episodes.

Kitase: Taking the No.8 street shown in the video this time, even just this is already highly dense. If we are to remake the content of the original version at that quality, it would have been impossible to do with a single release.

Splitting the original version into episode with nothing dropped, as well as adding complements, and remaking the game the game in its full volume is what we are thinking.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1152062

That's rather silly. Is there a hard cap for how large games can be on any consoles anymore? I know Blu-ray doesn't hold much, but CDs held even less and that didn't stop them, they just made it into multiple CDs. Is time the concern? Then why not take more time? I don't know, this just sounds like a lame excuse to make more money. Oh well, speculation won't get me anywhere, I'll have to wait until it comes out to see if it's something I'd buy or not.

 

[Bladexdsl]

Never played FF7 *Grabs shield*, but goddamn is this such a stupid idea.

well good news it's now on steam AND it's ONLY $12!

 

[yusuo]

Thing is, they could of easily made this one of the most profitable games of all time, all they would of needed to do would be update the sprites, update the background art, throw in some HD cut scenes and add a few more story quests.
Doing this they could of made millions but they fucked it.
I'm not remotely interested in this game anymore

 

[KingVamp]

Yeah, I rather just have multiple disk. Maybe with installs, so I don't have to keep switching disk.

 

[ultimatetemper]

Aerith Lives, the DLC.
The dream.

 

[FAST6191]

Episode 1. Midgar
Episode 2. After midgar
Episode 3. the next part after a choice place to stop in episode 2.

I would be OK with skipping to episode 2.

As for films being split up. I think every time it has happened thus far for something I have some investment in I have treated it at a two parter and waited to the next year and watched a double feature. Makes the editing a bit odd but I do not think I would do it any other way. When I have done it for films I do not especially care for I do not think it has improved things every.

 

[porkiewpyne]

Remember the good ol' days when we used to have multiple discs for a single game because there just wasn't enough space?

Guess the whippersnappers at Squeenix don't. :\


In all seriousness, it'd be a little disappointing if the game is released separately.

 

[ultimatetemper]

Episode One: FF7 Disk 1.
Episode Two: FF7 Disk 2.
Episode Three: FF7 Disk 3.

 

[dimmidice]

If Squeenix is really gonna split the main story, they would probably split in three parts.
Just like the original game.

Or more probably, for maximum profit, several episodes of, like, four hours each.
Buuh, Squeenix, buuh. Shame on you.

the original wasn't released in 3 parts. it was released on 3 discs because of size limitations. that's a completely different thing

 

[Pedeadstrian]

Episode One: FF7 Disk 1.
Episode Two: FF7 Disk 2.
Episode Three: FF7 Disk 3.

I doubt they'd split it as easily as that. Disc 3 has much less content than 1 and 2. They'd have to make a ton of new content specifically for disc three.

 

[FAST6191]

For the record the 3 discs thing was all FMV -- you can play the entire game on every disc, though if you force one disc then you will see odd cutscenes.

 

[wurstpistole]

I also don't get it. For years and years the community screamed for nothing more but a technical makeover. They released so many ports of the original version, with only some HD textures here and some higher resolution there and now they make a remake and what do they do?

The game play video honestly makes it look like an action adventure with predefined levels for me. I'm not even gonna speak about the battle system. And now they want to split it, like an episode game?

Sheesh. That's how you fuck up everything.

 

[T-hug]

That's rather silly. Is there a hard cap for how large games can be on any consoles anymore? I know Blu-ray doesn't hold much, but CDs held even less and that didn't stop them, they just made it into multiple CDs. Is time the concern? Then why not take more time? I don't know, this just sounds like a lame excuse to make more money. Oh well, speculation won't get me anywhere, I'll have to wait until it comes out to see if it's something I'd buy or not.

It also raises the question; is FFXV smaller than FFVII content-wise? If the above quotes from SE are true, then FFXV must be smaller than FFVII.

 

[Imparasite]

maybe the splitting part is like cd 1 and cd 2 etc etc in psx so they remaking the game base on cd part ahahaha hope im wrong ehehe if i remember the game have a 4 cd in PSX, so they will release part 1 which cd 1 first then part 2/cd 2 later and then the other parts later ehhehe

 

[Meteor7]

maybe the splitting part is like cd 1 and cd 2 etc etc in psx so they remaking the game base on cd part ahahaha hope im with it wrong ehehe if i remember the game have a 4 cd in PSX, so they will release part 1 which cd 1 first then part 2/cd 2 later and then the other parts later ehhehe

Even if that were the case, it's still incredibly shameless to try and sell them each individually.

 

[Xenon Hacks]

I'm out

 

[Pedeadstrian]

It also raises the question; is FFXV smaller than FFVII content-wise? If the above quotes from SE are true, then FFXV must be smaller than FFVII.

Depends on your definition of "smaller." Like the interview said, density plays a big role. In the original, you could traverse a mountain in less than a minute. In the remake, things will be bigger (so they don't look unrealistic) so you'll have to spend more time to traverse the same distance. That's just my theory. Of course, we don't know much about either games at the moment, to be honest.

Even if that were the case, it's still incredibly shameless to try and sell them each individually.

Nowhere have they said that they'll force each episode to be sold separately. I highly expect them to have a system similar to other episodic games. You can buy each episode individually or buy the whole game and get each episode when it comes out. I know this will sound incredibly naive, but it's entirely possible for them to release the game at a "normal" price for all episodes. If there's three episodes, and each takes about 20 hours to complete (depending on side-content and whatnot), they could sell each for $20-$25. That actually brings up the possibility for side-quests to be missable, if it's stuck to one episode...