Last week brought the very exciting news that Final Fantasy VI, which many people remember as Final Fantasy III on the SNES here in the US, would indeed be released for iOS and Android devices this winter. The confirmation came from longtime Square Enix producer Takashi Tokita, and in addition to confirming a port of Final Fantasy VI he also hinted that a port of Final Fantasy VII might be in the cards someday, acknowledging how many fans that particular entry in the series has.
However, Shacknews pressed Tokita further about a possible port of Final Fantasy VII and it looks like something that’s not going to happen any time soon, if it does happen at all. Here’s the money quote from Tokita: “Unfortunately, it’s not that it’s not impossible for us to develop Final Fantasy 7 for mobile. It’s that currently, space will be an issue. Phones won’t be able to contain the space it takes. It’s over a gigabyte. People are probably going to have to wait a few years."
Now, that seems like an odd reason to cite for a port to need to take years. As you’re probably aware, plenty of games on the App Store are well over 1GB. Apple limits the size of the actual downloadable app file to 2GB, but uncompressed on a device I’m not even sure if there is a limit, and I’ve seen apps that are even over 3GB when installed on a device.
Space may be an issue, but I doubt it’s the only issue holding Final Fantasy VII back from our mobile devices. I’d guess that if Square Enix were to release a port of Final Fantasy VII then they wouldn’t release a straight port of the original PlayStation title with its grainy visuals and low-quality cutscenes. I’d imagine they’d want to do it proper and rework the art for high resolution devices, and that project itself could take years of work.
At any rate, if last week’s hint at a Final Fantasy VII port for iOS got you all excited, maybe just kick back and enjoy the impending release of Final Fantasy VI as well as the previous games in the series, as the seventh entry will likely be a long ways out.
[Shacknews via Pocketgamer]
