You are proceeding to a page containing mature content. Is this OK?

check Yes, show me everything
close No, hide anything sensitive

Final Fantasy VIII Director Would Change the Battle System in a Remake

Final Fantasy VIII Director Would Change the Battle System in a Remake

Final Fantasy VIII, the eighth main installment in the Final Fantasy series, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this month, and the original director, Yoshinori Kitase, shared thoughts on a possible remake.

Speaking in an interview, Kitase talked about reworking the battle system of Final Fantasy VIII if he were to do a remake, as players struggled with the stat-heavy Junction system in the original RPG:

“I think you may remember we had the Junction system in Final Fantasy VIII,” he said. “And the thing about that system was the enemies leveled up in line with what the player’s level was. And obviously, you had to then use the Junction system and how you customize that to overcome the challenge there. And I think it was a very difficult system for some people to get into. Depending on player skills, sometimes they just didn’t work out the best way of doing it.

So I think I’d want to return to that and really rework the battle system on [Final Fantasy VIII] and make it something where that level of difficulty and approachability for some fans was a lot better balanced. So I think that’s the thing I’d look at most if I was going to look at remaking it.”

However, the director also talked about how a remake of Final Fantasy VIII was unlikely:

“I’ve worked out that trying to recreate that kind of volume of content you had in the RPGs back then in the modern day really is not something you can take up lightly. It’s such a massive investment of time and effort that we really have to think very hard about taking on any kind of project like that.”

Final Fantasy VII Remake director Naoki Hamaguchi also chimed in:

“If after we’ve finished the three games in the [Final Fantasy VII] remake trilogy, Mr. Kitase then comes to me and says, ‘Right, we’re going to be remaking another numbered Final Fantasy game, and you are on the project,’ I’ll just turn around and go, ‘No!’”

Final Fantasy VIII was initially released on February 11, 1999.

Leave a Comment

All comments must abide by the commenting rules.

24 Comments