Final Fantasy 7 - Are we trying to 'fix' a perfect game?

Like many, many thousands of others who have been waiting to hear the news for so long, I acted accordingly to the news about the remake of Final Fantasy 7.

I jumped, I screamed, I cried, and I hugged. 'It's finally happening!' About time, right? It's going to be amazing, right?!

After the initial cheer, you know, the one that could probably be heard from Mars, I sat down and thought about why I could feel a horrible twist of doubt alongside the joy. I looked at forums, and my own Facebook and Twitter feeds, and sure enough, amongst the 'hurrahs!' there were comments popping up, that reflected a feeling I was trying to ignore for a second. What exactly are they going to do with this game?

[breakout title="Joanne Kendrick" align="right"]Joanne Kendrick is a gaming blogger, and will cover news and reviews from the gaming world. She has written for the gaming websites Ready Up and Made2Game, as well as PlayGamer magazine. You can read more from her at Checkpoint Reached.[/breakout]

It's a huge responsibility, and an even bigger risk, to mess with one of the most treasured titles in the history of gaming. You see, Final Fantasy, and the meaning of these games, has changed over the years. Part of the appeal of Final Fantasy 7, and playing through it, is the feel of it. I remember Cloud's name, just as I remember Squall's name in Final Fantasy 8, and I haven't played the games for years. I remember plot twists, minigames, chocobo breeding, and truly feeling a part of that world. I remember crying at that bit and I remember starting the next disk, feeling as hollow as the characters I was controlling and sharing their 'We need to carry on' sentiment. I remember how it felt to finish the game. It deserves its place in history.

Calls for a remake have been going on for a long time. We even have a fan based trailer that circulated and added to the rumour mill that carried on churning over the years. When I read the news from E3, I triple checked, and then checked again, and still went to sleep wondering if it was actually going to happen.

I know that some remakes can work. I adore Resident Evil and what they did from the original version to the Gamecube version was fantastic. They did it all right; kept the initial feel, added some story without majorly messing with what was already there, and updated gameplay without changing the mechanics too much. I think that if we had received a Remake that played more like Resident Evil 4, as great a game as it was, it would not have gone down nearly as well.

What worries me with Final Fantasy, is that when it is released, it may be impossible to please everyone with it. Again, what are we going to do with it? What needed doing with it? It's timeless. Apart from the graphics, and maybe some tighter controls, there isn't really any need for change. Are they going to talk? I personally hated it when they went with proper voicing for the games. I learnt to get used to it in Final Fantasy 10, and I know that this is how the games have progressed. I can't help disliking it, though, and I have often wondered if it's something I am being petty over, or whether others share my opinion.

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I think it all worries me because of the direction that the more recent games have headed. I wrote an article a few years ago, expressing my disappointment in the more recent games and I think the fact that I can't even remember one character's name, one location, or anything about Final Fantasy 12, and got bored a quarter of the way through Final Fantasy 13 and never returned to it. So as much as I know I will play and (hopefully) enjoy this remake, I'd rather the time and effort were spent making a completely new game which is even better than the past few efforts.