Tetsuya Nomura talks Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, The First Soldier and Ever Crisis in Famitsu interview

A plethora of Final Fantasy VII related news dropped yesterday after the Sony State of Play presentation. Square Enix had announced Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade and Episode Yuffie for PlayStation 5 and two new mobile games, Final Fantasy VII The First Soldier and Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis, with the former being a RPG battle royale and the latter being the entire Final Fantasy VII storyline — spinoffs and all — explained in one singular title.

Amidst all this exciting news, a Famitsu article featuring an interview with director Tetsuya Nomura was also dropped, and with it came a bunch of interesting tidbits of information regarding the three new titles. Thanks to the efforts of Aitaikuji, who has the interview translated in full on their blogpost, we got to learn a bit more about these three titles and what they will entail.

In regards to the newly added Photo Mode to Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, Nomura was asked if it would be similar to Kingdom Hearts III ReMind‘s photo mode. Nomura responded by explaining that the new Photo Mode is more a snapshot feature and players will not be able to pose characters, but rather capture favorite moments — like a fancier screenshot mode. He also said that no prior unlocking is required to use this mode, and will be available immediately.

When asked about the appearance of Dirge of Cerberus’  Weiss, and why the development team choose him to be a character players can battle, Nomura said that “since the strongest character, Sephiroth, is already in the game”  the dev team wanted to have another powerful boss to fight, and so Weiss was chosen. “I personally am curious as to how a battle would play out for the first time with Cloud versus Weiss. In fact, I even asked the team to add Weiss as a secret boss ever since the PS4 version.”

Famitsu goes on to note that Weiss is an encounter in the Shinra Battle Simulator, but wondered if he would appear elsewhere in the game too. Nomura could not comment on the matter. Furthermore, when asked about the boss Yuffie would face at the end of her DLC, Nomura gave a vague, but interesting answer:

“The new boss character in the Yuffie DLC story is different than Weiss. As for who else will appear aside from Weiss, well, please wait for more info to find out.”

Discussing the new mobile Final Fantasy VII Battle Royale, Nomura told Famitsu that The First Soldier takes place before SOLDIER is established, and players will play cadets in those early days. Nomura goes on to say that the story isn’t very heavy given the nature of the game itself, but it does form the backbone of one of the most iconic jobs in the Final Fantasy VII universe.

Nomura then explains that The First Soldier will have solo battles and trio battles, and the winner is whoever is the last person, or team, standing. This Battle Royale will also feature RPG elements, in that players can level up by gathering items and defeating monsters.

Finally, Nomura is asked about Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis and what went into the decision to remake the entire Final Fantasy VII series as a mobile game and what stories it will cover. Nomura describes that Ever Crisis is designed to be an answer for the players who enjoy the command-style RPG system. He also says that Ever Crisis will span across several Final Fantasy VII titles, which will be released monthly as chapters, and can be played in any order. This does, in fact, include The First Soldier as well in the lineup of stories, to which Nomura teased a little bit about:

“In particular, since the story covers what happened before SOLDIER was established, we’ve also added in a part about THAT Legendary Hero’s youth. That story in particular is a huge eye-catcher, and we have asked Nojima-san to write the scenario too. We hope you look forward to it!”

Source: Aitaikuji


About the Author

Raptorchan Raptorchan joined the Nova Crystallis team in 2017 after discovering her passion for writing and gaming journalism. She is not only an avid Square Enix fan, but also a cosplayer who loves collecting figurines, playing RPGs and making videos.

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