The co-director of the game explains the fundamentals of the new invocations system, which differs from the classic one in different points.
Summons have long been an important element in the Final Fantasy universe. They were also in the seventh installment, which was recently reimagined thanks to Final Fantasy VII Remake. For this title, which left the classic turn-based combat system behind to embrace tactical action, the studio also had to rethink the summons system. Naoki Hamaguchi, co-director of the game, explained on the official PlayStation blog what that process was like.
Changes and restatements
“The core concept of the Final Fantasy VII Remake innovations is collaboration in battle,” says Hamaguchi. The creative recalls that in previous games in the saga, including the seventh chapter, when choosing an invocation, it appeared for a few seconds in a cinematic to launch its attack and then leave. “For this game, we knew we wanted them to fight alongside you.” His original idea was that the invocation accompanied and helped during the battle “for longer”, and even that it could be controlled. “Of course, having the idea and making it happen are two different things,” he acknowledges.
Initially, they tried to make each of the summons have their own ATB bar, which when completed, could offer a list of commands, as one more character. “And there was the problem. Although we achieved their goal of collaborating in battle, they perceived themselves as just another member of the team. They did not change the feel of the battles in a significant way and would lack the special sense that the players wanted ”, that is, the feeling of power and of being unique.
So they decided to step back and modify the system. “This time, players had to consume their own ATB bar for the summon to perform special attacks. This gave us a strong sense of joint struggle. ” The most important thing, however, is that they achieved that unique feeling they were looking for. “We also implemented another change: you can only invoke for a limited period of time. The reason we did it is because we wished there were important moments during the battle. “
Design and absences
The Square Enix team worked hard on the design. “Six of the invocations that appear in Final Fantasy VII Remake were taken from the original game, so we had to retain the very essence of those designs. All in all, recreating them as-is would not have been “good enough with current graphics standards.” So they spent long hours working on redesigning them.
Ramuh was going to be one of the included summons, but they had to give it up for two reasons: “Firstly, we thought that there would be people who would like to use Leviathan in Reactor Mako 1, as could be done in the demo of the original game. Secondly, we believed that fans would be disappointed if they couldn’t see Bahamut in Final Fantasy. And the feeling gratifyingly? Square Enix thought about it. Hence they decided that in order to obtain a summoning material, it would have to be defeated first.
Final Fantasy VII Remake was released on April 10 as a temporary exclusive to PlayStation 4. Square Enix is already working on a second installment.
