How Square Enix crushed gamers’ spirits with the Final Fantasy 7 announcement

The PlayStation Experience Keynote was easily one of the best presentations, beating out any previous E3 Press Conference that I've watched. The reason is simple; it was during a conference that was for gamers, thus, it only needed to focus on games. We weren't bogged down with news of entertainment apps, movies, or a 20 minute presentation of Powers. Instead it was a constant onslaught of new announcements and gameplay presentations. The Keynote had a good momentum too. Sure, it started out incredibly strong with a presentation of Uncharted 4, but even subsequent announcements never lost that great momentum, giving everyone from PS4 owners to Vita owners a reason to be excited about their consoles.

Then Square Enix came on stage.

I admit, I was pumped. I had no idea what they were going to show, but my money was on either Final Fantasy XV or Kingdom Hearts III. My heart was jumping at the thought of finally seeing some actual Kingdom Hearts III gameplay that's not cut together into a quick trailer. But then my heart nearly stopped. The Final Fantasy VII logo appeared on screen, and my mind went crazy for a second. Whether you're a die hard fan of Final Fantasy VII or think it's one of the most overrated entries in the series, it's common knowledge that it has been one of the most requested remakes for over a decade, especially once Square Enix showed off the impressive tech demo recreated for PS3 hardware.

Shinji Hashimoto, laughing at the upcoming mass disappointment

The screen went black, and the main menu from Final Fantasy VII appeared, asking whether we want to start a New Game or Continue. The trailer then continued to show the game in its original (PC) graphics and I knew– I just knew that any second now, the graphics would slowly morph into current-gen. I was going crazy, I kept taking pictures of the screen, hoping I wouldn't miss the transition. I even paused to open up Messenger to text a fellow colleague about this crazy announcement.

The transition never came.

The trailer ended and Final Fantasy producer Shinji Hashimoto announced that the PC version of Final Fantasy VII, complete with the original but upscaled graphics, would be making its console exclusive debut in Spring 2015…

My head hurts just from typing that.

But my naive heart still held on. After all, Shinji Hashimoto kept talking, so that means he had to have something more to announce right? "The desire for Final Fantasy VII on PlayStation is very strong." It was coming, I just knew it was coming. He's not walking off the stage yet, so there must be more to announce! And he keeps talking about Final Fantasy VII specifically, so it can't be over! Right?! "We even saw that some players, remade a portion of the game inside of LittleBigPlanet."

Wow…

I knew that if I, someone who isn't even a die-hard FF7 fan (FF8 forever!), was mad about this announcement, then there will be a ton of really angry people on the internet. and I certainly wasn't wrong.

Even Aerith was praying for an HD makeover…

But what was Square Enix's goal behind this announcement? I refuse to believe that they're so shut in that they wouldn't acknowledge that gamers have been wanting a FF7 remake for years. Did they really think a stage presentation warranted this announcement? Tweeting about this or a simple press release would have done the job just as well, and wouldn't have built up fans expectations during the first 30 seconds of Hashimoto being on stage. Did they not realize the repercussions this would have? I have so many questions but sadly no answers.

In a way, it's silly to yearn for a remake of a game that came out in 1997, but for a lot of gamers, such as myself, that was their first Final Fantasy game. This was the game that made me fall in love with the franchise, and made me seek out earlier entries and be excited for subsequent releases. The truth of the matter is though, I think a lot of gamers had given up hope on a remake, and that was fine. But Square's announcement was re-opening that wound, and shoving a rusty dagger inside and leaving it in.

How do you feel about Square's bold announcement during the PlayStation Experience Keynote? Were you holding on to hope for an HD remake or did you let that dream go a long time ago? Let me know in the comments.