The FFIII engine prints money: Final Fantasy IV remake on the way
by Alisha Karabinus 
{ May 8th 2007 at 2:00PM }
Well, if you weren't quite convinced that Final Fantasy III DS was worth getting excited over, then try this on for size: rumor has it that the same team has taken on an update of Final Fantasy IV -- one of three Final Fantasy titles heralded as a contender for the title of best game ever.
Whereas the original FFIII was passed over for a U.S. release and featured, prior to update, a nameless band of warriors, the next entry in the series originated many of the qualities that turned the franchise into a global powerhouse. The game debuted the Active Time Battle system and featured an epic storyline that's still held dear in the hearts of RPG gamers everywhere. It's been remade several times -- most recently (and we mean recently) for the GBA -- but a remake using the FFIII engine could give the game new life and improve the only thing that needs to be improved, which is the graphics.
If this is true (and it wouldn't surprise us), we'll most likely hear confirmation on it soon, since the Square Enix Party is this weekend in Japan. According to the rumor, the game is nearly finished as well, so if it's coming, we won't have long to wait.
[Via NeoGAF]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
blasphemizer @ May 8th 2007 2:13PM
VII!!!
Joshua @ May 8th 2007 2:16PM
Well, damn, if they're remaking FFIV, why not just remake the whole entire series?
ConstyXIV @ May 8th 2007 2:46PM
@1 blasphemizer:
I highly doubt FFVII will be seen on the DS for one large reason:
FFVII on PSX:700MBx3CD
FFIII on NDS:128MBx1 game card
If you can find some way to squeeze 2100 megabytes of data into 128 megabytes, be my guest. I note that you can't swap out cards during a DS game, because it freezes the DS.
Instead, if FFVII indeed gets a remake (since a DS port would be difficult-to-impossible), expect to see it on the Wii or PS360
Keith @ May 9th 2007 8:40AM
How about other Square-Enix RPGs? Enough of the FFs already...
Jason @ May 8th 2007 3:19PM
Why the heck not? Like you said, the engine is a license to print money. I'm currently replaying FFIII on the DS right now, and loving it!
Keep 'em coming Square.
Jason
http://www.nintendoko.com
Saphion @ May 8th 2007 3:23PM
Didn't that Square-Enix guy say that they could do it on DS, but the deciding factor in them actually doing it would be timing?
KrisB @ May 8th 2007 9:31PM
ConstyXIV:
most of that would have been taken up by the audio tracks + FMV though.
You just need to look at the recent 360 release of "Symphony of the Night" to realise that it's possible. They managed to get that down to 90mb, and that's designed to run at full screen on a tv. I'm sure it could be made even smaller. Depends on the compression for fmv and audio etc. It would be pretty do-able if they ditched any actual audio and replaced it with midi versions of the music.
Kristi @ May 8th 2007 3:41PM
I'd be more excited if I didn't finish FF IV GBA on my DS a couple months ago. It was so much better than FF III DS, but I'm not eager to play the same game again so soon, not when I have other games waiting to be played.
But I'll still buy IV in DS format, it's a great game and eventually the battery in the GBA cart will die.
Fatass of Kickassness @ May 8th 2007 4:02PM
If they remake IV that only means that V and VI remakes are on the way.
Notably the VI remake.
DG10050 @ May 8th 2007 4:25PM
@3
Actually you can swap out cartridges if the game's programming allows for it. NitroHax (DS homebrew) and Action Replay both have to do this. And do I need to remind you of Resident Evil DS. They managed to fit that quite nicely on one cartridge, so FFVII can't take up more than 3 cartridges. Compression techniques have come a long way since the days of the PSX.
Gozan @ May 8th 2007 4:44PM
Screw FFVII, remake Chrono Trigger!
Mr Khan @ May 8th 2007 4:57PM
@ Dg100500
exactly, i say the same thing to those who scoff at the possibility of Saturn games on the Wii
Worse came to worse, just lop off the cutscenes and you could EASILY cut off 1/3 of that games space, also consider that it all ran off of totally uncompressed audio (because at the time, compressed audio = shit, which is no longer the case)
BigDrahma @ May 8th 2007 5:13PM
If they're going to use the FFIII engine, it would be most suited for FF4 through 6. Doing FF7 on the DS would probably require a different engine, but the DS is perfectly suited for the technique Square used in FF7 (3D characters over a 2D pre-rendered pic) due to the nature of how it handles 2D and 3D seperately (i.e., no performance hit for layering 3D over 2D or 3D benefit from having 2D removed). It could be done if you make all the FMV's in-game instead, and toss out most of the voice-work. Removing those major space-hogs, and optimizing the graphics to the DS's screen size could drop the overall size down to 128MB, or 256MB.
On a tangent, you might be able to page the cartridge into 2 128MB sections, and use a small "boot section" title screen to access the save-game and virtually "insert the right cartridge" by turning on the right page of ROM. Knowing the FF7 kiddies in Japan, Squeenix could probably get away with selling FF7DS for $80 and recoup the extra costs of manufacturing.
Alisha Karabinus @ May 8th 2007 6:18PM
Re: VI and VII -- obviously, they're getting there, and I for one welcome our new DS Final Fantasy overlords.
Illtron @ May 8th 2007 6:49PM
I will pay high quality Yen for FFVI. In fact, I'm pretty tempted to buy IV or VI for the GBA this week to play on my DS, since I've got a couple of four-hour bus this weekend rides and the only game I own is New Super Mario Bros.
Chris the last, first and third @ May 8th 2007 7:48PM
The DS cartridge comes in 128mb and 1gb and I doubt the developers used all of the 700*mb space on teh CD.
Konosuke @ May 8th 2007 8:39PM
@ Chris; I checked myself. All three CD's used up about 200-400 MB of space. So, with compression of audio and screen size, there can even be some visual enhancements and even a system created for the touch screen. It'd have to be placed on a 1GB card. I mean, come on, if third party developers can create a DS cart that can read from a MicroSD card and still fit perfectly in the DS, what prevents Nintendo from doing so?
KrisB @ May 8th 2007 9:35PM
doh, I actually posted this like 6 hours ago, didn't realise that I had to approve it through my e-mail for it to turn up!
So sorry for re-itterating what has already been said!
JBGUY2K @ May 8th 2007 9:43PM
@Chris the last, first and third
you got your facts mixed up, yo. The DS cartridges are 1 gigabit which is exactly 128 megabytes(do the math: 1 billion bits and divide it by 8, then divide by another 1024 to put it in the megabyte form.
Simple conversion. Nintendo just announced it as gigabits so it would sound like they could hold a lot more information than it really does(gullible people are oft stupid.)
Kade Storm @ May 8th 2007 10:25PM
This is great news for the DS fanboys. Hell, this might just be the title to lure me back to my DS.
By the way, to the few neysayers - get real. 3 cd ff 7 from 1997 =/= a remake on DS. Very different situations, compressions, methods, and development philosophies. Tales of Eternia was meant to be a three CD game, when ported over to the PSP, the size came down to around 900 megs - O'RLY?! Yeah. How did that happen?
As Mr. Khan's already point out you can tweak the audio compressions, and get rid of the clips. Hell, I insist that you can keep the clips. Certain individuals are ignoring a fundamental reality that the screen size argument against an FF7 port is a double-edged sword. Smaller resolution, smaller size. Damn, the crap that people come up with to shoot down a certain possibility is amazingly stupid. And yes, look at Resident Evil, as a decent example. I don't care if some had issues with how it played and and looked. It was still a point for point direct port, and they managed to conceive such a port within a 128 megabyte limit. And you know what, I was very satisfied with that port!
NeverSage @ May 8th 2007 11:58PM
I vote they skip straight to VI
ssuk @ May 9th 2007 5:37AM
@3: They wouldn't port it (although if it wasn't for the ammount of CGI and audio the game has, it could have been a possibility(Resident Evil DS was just a port of the PS1 version and a lot of the princibles used in RE were used in FFVII). Removing the real audio and using the DS sound chip would cause up-heaval from the fanbase). If they remade FFVII they'd have the DS' capabilities in mind, and maybe do a deal with Nintendo like they did for Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories (32mb GBA cartridge, biggest cart size out there), it's not improbable that Nintendo could make a bigger DS card, hell, SD Micro now pushes 3Gigabytes and they're puny compared to the DS card.
However, I think Square went a bit crazy on the porting bit. FF1&2 remake on PSP, FFIIIr on DS now FFIVr on DS? I'd have liked all of them on one or both consoles, not mish-mashed between the two, personally.
Kefka @ May 9th 2007 8:17AM
If Squeenix do 3D remakes of FFVI and Chrono Trigger, I will personally suck the wangs of every member of the development team.
...
Or send them chocolates.
As for FFVII (I knew the topic had been brought up when i saw there were 20+ comments...) - I'm not sure the DS could handle it, to be honest.
I'd love to see it, but... I'm not holding my breath too much.
zelon @ May 9th 2007 8:47AM
FFVII could certainly be ported to the DS. The only reason it takes up three CDs is because of the movies. Each disc actually contains mostly the same game data repeated. The music in FFVII is midi, not a digital track so that takes up no room.
The movies can EASILY be compressed with today's codecs to take up little room. The game data can also be compressed, something I'm sure they didn't care about with a CD format. Resident Evil 2 was a two CD game that came out on a 512 megabit N64 cartridge with nothing omitted nearly ten years ago. The DS version of FFIII is twice that size.
Saphion @ May 9th 2007 9:51AM
I agree about Resident Evil. Having missed out on the GameCube remake and never playing the original, I thought it was excellent, and I had no complaints. (Not even about the control scheme!)