As one of the most adored games of perhaps all time, Final Fantasy VII might be the most desired re-makes among fans today. But time and time again, developer Square Enix has announced no formal plans to ever give in to fan's requests, saying they'd only ever follow through once a new game "exceeded the quality" of FF7. Since that doesn't seem to be in the cards, unless Lightning Returns completely dominates when it releases this February, what about a portable option?
The series' precursor, Final Fantasy VI, is heading to Android and iOS based devices as part of the Final Fantasy Legacy series. While it's retaining its 2D-style, it is getting some visual touch ups, as well as touch screen controls. And if the series works out, producer Takashi Tokita has plans to one day bring a FF7 port to the same systems.
"We are aware that we have tons of VII fans," Tokita said, reports NerdReactor. "We have VII fans in our own company. If this Legacy project works out well, we would like to one day be able to work with VII."
But there might be some trouble brewing. Speaking with Shacknews, series producer Takashi Tokita said that a mobile port could take years, saying, "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."
When Final Fantasy VII first released for the original PlayStation back in 1997, it took up 3 discs due to the amount of FMV cut scenes. Even with technological adaptations, the game still takes up a hefty amount of space.
Reports The Washington Post, "The most recent PC re-release of Final Fantasy VII clocks in at 2.16 GB, according to the Square-Enix online store. That's already outside of Apple's 2 GB limit on app size - and if the legacy team wanted to follow the example set by their earlier ports and clean things up a bit or add some new content, it would like be even larger. It is under the 4 GB app size allowance on Android devices, but it's worth noting that the Android cap was 50 MB until last year."
If the limit was raised again, then maybe we'll get that port after all, but that's up to Apple and Android.
