The people at Square Enix have been taking a close look at rival developers, as producer Yoshinori Kitase has named Marvel’s Spider-Man as one of the games that influenced Final Fantasy VII Remake. 

Fans of Final Fantasy VII once expected a remake of the game to use the same turn-based style as the original, but the people at Square Enix had different plans. When gameplay footage of Final Fantasy VII Remake was revealed, it more closely resembled Final Fantasy XV or one of the Kingdom Hearts games than the original title from ‘97. The intention with Final Fantasy VII Remake is to make a fast and exciting action RPG with a combat system that is more in line with Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

The city of Midgar is now an open location, rather than being composed of static backgrounds. One of the inspirations for this new freedom of movement was PlayStation 4 exclusive Marvel’s Spider-Man, which Yoshinori Kitase mentioned in a recent interview. Kitase was the director and scenario writer of the original Final Fantasy VII and is a producer on Final Fantasy VII Remake. He discussed Marvel’s Spider-Man and its influence on Final Fantasy VII Remake in a recent interview with Game Informer. 

Final Fantasy VII Remake is only covering the Midgar section of the story from the original Final Fantasy VII, which means that the developers have had to expand the location in order to make it feel like a real city. Midgar will feature a lot more content in Final Fantast VII Remake than it did in Final Fantasy VII, so expanding the city and giving the playable characters more freedom of movement within it makes sense.

Whenever new games come out while we’re in the process of developing something – for example, Spider-Man – we buy a copy of the game and we all play it in an open space to see what sort of technology, elements, and graphics they are using. There are many times when these games are trying to achieve something similar to what we are trying to achieve, so by playing them, sometimes we can find hints as to how to further something we’ve gotten to a roadblock on. But if we constantly look at these games and say, “We want our graphics to be better than that,” or “We want this function to be better than that,” if you keep doing that, things just spiral further and further, and so does the release date. It’s just never-ending. For that reason, it’s very important to have a core idea of what story you want to tell and what sort of thing you want your audience to experience. Of course, lots of these games have lots of very good elements do them; it’s important to have your core idea so as not to be influenced. Because if you don’t, it’s really easy to think, “What if we added this? What if we added that?” But due to this, you will lose the central focus of your game, so it’s very important to remain strong in that.

Marvel’s Spider-Man is the second best-selling PlayStation 4 game and it was loved by both fans and critics alike upon release. Final Fantasy VII Remake isn’t trying to be a carbon copy of the original and it has over twenty years worth of titles to learn from. Final Fantasy VII Remake can only be improved by taking lessons from the adventures of Peter Parker.

Final Fantasy VII Remake will be released for PlayStation 4 on March 3, 2020.

Source: Game Informer