A lot of hype is building up for the release of Square Enix's remaster of Final Fantasy VII mainly because of the game's influence to the franchise. Even people who haven't played the game are sure to recognize characters like Cloud Strife and Sephiroth at a single glance. A new clip has been released focused on Yoshiyaka Amano, one of the original artists for FF7.
In a video from Polygon, Amano recounts how he has been with the series from the very beginning. Though FF games right now have become visual action extravaganzas, earlier players will recall that the first games had more of a 2D type format and focused more on the story. Amano had been working on the franchise for 30 years, and his art style has proved to be one of the more influential ones in video games in the last decade.
On working on FF7, Amano recalls that one of the trickier changes was when the game decided to change its format from the Super Nintendo to the Playstation. Before the seventh game came out, the art for the games had always been coming from Amano. With FF7, Amano had to adjust to the designs of director Tetsuya Nomura. Nomura himself is still very involved with the franchise, and is currently directing Kingdom Hearts III and the Final Fantasy VII remake.
In designing the characters, Amano said that he focused on making the characters look futuristic. He also goes on to say that the developers had tried to make a good contrast between the protagonist Cloud and antagonist Sephiroth; Though Cloud was supposed to look boyish and innocent, Sephiroth was more on looking cool and collected.
Polygon has actually listed an oral history of the game that fans can check out here. Sure enough, it would get people more excited for the remake, as Nomura has confirmed that it may be a while before the remastered version of the game gets released.
No official release date has been announced for the Final Fantasy VII remake.
