Below is Famitsu’s full interview with Final Fantasy VII Remake co-director Motomu Toriyama from the August 6, 2020 issue translated by 黒凧 BlackKite.
F: Some time has passed since release. How are you honestly feeling right now?
T: I’m glad we’re able to deliver an entertainment product that can be enjoyed at home in the middle of the change into a new lifestyle. I feel like there were concerns from fans before release on how FFVII Remake’s stage is being limited to Midgar. But by delving even deeper into FFVII’s world as a compensation, everyone seems to have a high degree of satisfaction so I’m relieved.
F: The battles and stories are obvious, but the details on the background of each area in Midgar, a number of songs that only played in a single cutscene, and more; the entire game looks extravagant it even leaves an impression that tenacity is felt from the time & effort needed. Does zeal from the dev staff play a big part here as well?
T: When we decided to revive the major title that is FFVII with current technology, I thought how to reproduce the extravagance back then. Both the method of allocating production time and amount of staff involved for a single scene and area have become extremely larger than that time. So we were able to perform manufacturing that corresponds to that thanks to the fixations from each individual staff.
F: Which place where you’re fixated the most while being involved with this game’s development?
T: While I do rearrange them with new expressions, I was fixated on making everywhere feel like FFVII. You’ll know there’s a mix of places that changed when you play the original work once again and places that were also included in the original story, but I think you can enjoy both elements with a natural flow as a remake. I’d be glad if this game overwrites your memories of the original FFVII into something even more vivid.
F: We think the dev staff is comprised of not only staff who actually worked on FFVII but also younger staff who never played it in real-time, so were there any episodes where you felt a difference in generations?
T: A lot of the staff have either played the original FFVII or even had it as a reason to join this industry, so it was a gathering of members who know the original work better than even members who produced FFVII back then like myself, and they have the enthusiasm to make it as close as possible to reality. On places that might be prone to having a conservative flow, I personally did directions while being aware of [intentions] from staff who made the original version back then to ‘create a new game nobody has seen before’ and made sure that it’s also included in the remake.
F: Were there any wishful features that couldn’t be realized in productions of the original FFVII and other games up until now, but could just be realized with this game?
T: Regarding the music, speaking of FFVII I feel it was like a movie work, but in this game we were able to do the challenge of creating a movie-like soundtrack since we couldn’t employ it back then due to regulations on capacity and production time. Back then we wanted to apply exclusive songs that match the game’s flow into videos within the entire game; we tried taking that in again with this remake. With this way of creation, we couldn’t make a list beforehand, nor could we count the amount of songs, which is why we ended up finishing with a big volume equivalent to 7 CDs (laughs).
F: Are there anything you’re surprised or impressed at when you’re actually playing FFVII Remake as a player?
T: I know from review sites post-release that every single detail on the game’s background – from posters, billboards, station schedule list to detailed features in buildings – are being inspected as lifestyle in Midgar. I’m glad that they are touching deep into the details, but on the other hand I think it also leaves some places that can be retorted, so it also creates a pressure that we must create with fixations to even more details for the next title and beyond (laughs).
F: Compared to 23 years ago, we feel like the trends have changed; from the existence of voices, the mood of the conversations, to the designs. Wasn’t it difficult to take a balance like presenting it in a modern way while leaving the original taste intact?
T: I want it to be presented with full voices including NPCs like citizens, so I took care that when you listen to the voices they’d sound like natural conversations. While we did leave intact the lines from the interestingly unique NPCs from the original version, I feel like there’s a good balance that we placed them to stand out without getting buried by the sheer amount of NPCs compared to before.
F: We felt a new side from each character, like how Cloud is acting cool so that no one would realize that he has grown taller, but that’d make him uncool on the contrary; or how Barret’s character becomes a high-tensioned one who thrusts headfirst into things. Wouldn’t the stories and event scenes reflected from such character elements in FF7R feel fresh even to you, Toriyama-san?
T: We did the voice recordings after the cutscene videos were done, but I feel like the characters’ finalized actings were made to have more appeals thanks to the good expressions from the voice actors. At the voice recording workplace, Barret especially had a combo of unexpected elements, and there were also things where he may have gone so far, but I feel like it made his characteristic stand out as a result.
F: The most extreme place to see a new side of Cloud is during the dance at the Honeybee Inn. But did Cloud’s dance scene exist in the plot from the beginning of the development?
T: We expected Cloud’s crossdressing to be an unremoveable feature and get even more attention, so we did plot to remake it so that it stands out even more. We placed the Wall Market there as the biggest entertainment city, and we focus the Honeybee Inn’s content on the amusement features; that’s the major remake we made. I was the one who also produced Honeybee Inn in the original version, so that’s why it’s also easy to do such a daring remake. I feel like we’re able to show an improved stage while leaving the original mood intact.
F: The dog Stamp made unexpected (?) appearances in many places (as guide marks to point direction and on the snack package after OOOO’s event), but did such a setting exist from the beginning of the development?
T: The dog Stamp actually had a setting from the beginning of the development as an important motif. The method to use it in the actual game was decided together with the game design, but I feel like it was stocked to stand out in a good way, such as the Avalanche’s marker. Please also notice that the dog Stamp when OOOO appeared is also of a different dog breed.
F: We were surprised that such a setting was prepared for Chadley. Whose idea was it for that setting?
T: Chadley was a new character in the Remake that didn’t appear in the original version, so the scenario team made the new setting. It’s for Battle Report, the content with a high difficulty to clear, and he’s also a character that gets in contact with Cloud through the entire game, so it’s a large-scaled setting. Even I still can’t clear it in Hard difficulty, but I kindly hope people who haven’t cleared everything will try to use this opportunity to challenge it.
F: The new character Roche is a character with a big impact, but he was also a mysterious character who didn’t show up from Chapter 4 and beyond. Was there an intention to make Roche into such a character? (Any plans in the future to make him appear again?)
T: Actually there was a composition to make Roche appear in the last battle at Midgar Highway, but he might have ruined the serious mood before the ending so we omitted him. There was also a composition to have him trigger a battle in the Slum roads in Chapter 14, but there were no roads that can be used by bikes in the Slum, so we also abandoned it.
I feel like the instant show-and-fall place is what made him stand out as Roche, so that may have appropriately increased the chances of him appearing in the future titles indeed (laughs).
F: This game has a lot of conversations during movements and battles, and even the same scene also has a variety of quote patterns prepared. Did you also look at those conversations, Toriyama-san?
T: All scenarios are checked by myself and supervised by Nojima-san. There used to be more character interactions in boss battles in the voice scripts we prepared at the beginning, but from the middle parts of the game we changed the composition so that there are fewer guide hints as we want the players to think, so we cut a lot of them.
F: Toriyama-san, please tell us if you have any other episodes, scenes, or quotes you liked or you wish could be added in particular.
T: The Avalanche Base located in the basement of Seventh Heaven was one of the interesting scenes that also left an impression in the original version. But we removed that element in this game because we also made a big sense of distance between the Avalanche and Cloud’s team. I wanted to remake Barret punching a sandbag, but I stayed patient (laughs).
F: Finally, if you have a message to our readers or anything else you want to say at this opportunity, please kindly say it here.
T: FFVII Remake’s 1st title has ended without a hitch, but the remake’s story has still just begun. We’d like to make the future titles to exceed even more expectations while listening to all our fans’ voices. I am also playing the original version after a long time after I played the Remake. I’ll be glad if you wait with excitement by enjoying the differences from the Remake until Midgar and then predicting the story development of the future titles after Midgar.
Additional comments from producer Yoshinori Kitase also translated and summarised by 黒凧 BlackKite.
For the first one Kitase got asked the same as Toriyama’s 2nd question and he answered “It’s the result of the fixations from the development staff starting from Co-Directors Hamaguchi & Toriyama”
For the second one, Kitase got asked if there were debates on whether to change Remake’s story development from the original or not:
“Director Nomura and Co-Directors Hamaguchi & Toriyama basically hoped that parts loved by players in the original work get preserved as much as possible. We constructed the balance in a way that we can add a few surprises there. Although there may be some people among the fans who hoped to experience their same memories, if it were to be exactly the same, it’d be just a vicarious experience of memories and it’d lose its intention as a remake. By adding new features, it could be reborn as a “new FFVII”, couldn’t it?”
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