“My take on Final Fantasy, and this is quite deliberate, is I don’t restrict it to being any one thing,” says series producer Yoshinori Kitase. I’d asked him what he felt was the essence of Final Fantasy, especially as so many fans have their own ideas of what the series should be.
“We talk about Final Fantasy as being a toy box,” he continues. “The idea that you take the lid off the toy box and you’ve got all kinds of different things in there. There’s a dinosaur here, you’ve got your football here and your baseball here. And there are so many different things to play with and have fun. And that to me, that’s what Final Fantasy is.”
I’m chatting with Kitase at a preview event for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, the next game in the series and second in the planned trilogy of remakes. The Final Fantasy series is beloved, but the seventh is, perhaps, the most beloved of all – at least in its legacy of 3D graphics and cinematic storytelling.
Remaking the game for a modern audience, then, is a mammoth undertaking. Kitase directed the original game, but now – as series producer – is overseeing Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi reimagining the game for fans and newcomers alike.
But why remake this game in the first place? “If a player from the modern generation plays [the original], are they going to get the same emotional reaction and response the original generation of players had 27 years ago when it was current and cutting edge? I don’t think they would,” says Kitase.