The prospect of a Final Fantasy VII Remake

With 9.8 million sales and counting and ranked second in the Playstation's 1 list of best-selling video games, Final Fantasy VII is one of the most successful RPG's ever created to date. As a result of its graphics, gameplay, music and story, Final Fantasy VII has been acknowledged as the game that took the console role-playing game genre outside of the Japanese market and made it mainstream, and has been named as one of the best games of all time by fans and critics alike; given its average user & critic score of 9.45/10 [source: Gamespot].

The success of the title led Squaresoft (now Square-Enix) to create a number of spin-offs for different platforms and is known as the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. Ever since it's release, an enhanced remake for PS2 initially and subsequently the PS3 has been floating, though Square Enix have never given any real indication or confirmation of any development regarding this subject. At E3 2005, a two-minute tech-demo of Final Fantasy VII for the PS3 was created. The response from fans was so overwhelming that ever since this tech demo was released, fans have been sitting at the edge of their seat anxiously waiting for any solid information regarding a remake for the PS3.

In has been over 12 years since Final Fantasy VII was released for the Playstation. And still, there are, on average, 1.2 million searches per month [source: Google insights].

Given these figures, including the combined sales stats of approximately 30 million copies of the entire Compilation combined, it would only be logical for Square-Enix co. to profit from this cash cow. The problem lies in the resources and time required to remake Final Fantasy 7 on the current platform; Square Enix's producer Yoshinori Kitase had recently stated that the production time would take somewhere between 30 - 40 years to remake Final Fantasy 7 using graphics similar to that of Final Fantasy XIII. This figure may be slightly exaggerated as they would be able to use some of the assets from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children; whether or not they make use of these assets the Final Fantasy 7 Remake would still require a large amount of time to complete.

Of course, this has not stopped fans from taking their own actions in hopes of securing a Final Fantasy 7 Remake. There has been an online petition which has 70,000 signatures thus far; this will be sent to Square Enix to highlight just how many fans would like a remake. Other fans have taken substantially more aggressive actions and have even gone as far as starting their own remake.

Final Fantasy 7 was also published by Eidos (which has now been acquired By Square Enix) on the PC platform. Given the platforms modifiable nature, it is no surprise that Final Fantasy 7 PC is still being played today with the use of a number of mods created by very able fans who have a diverse skill set.

The modders have spent the best part of about 10 years working on a number of different projects with the overall aim to remake Final Fantasy VII with scaled audio, graphics and much more.

My verdict? I would highly recommend playing Final Fantasy 7 PC with these patches that improve the overall game; this is as close as we'll get to a Final Fantasy VII remake until we hear something slightly less volatile from Square Enix, which will of course have to happen sooner or later.